South  American  Problems  \ 

Robert  E.  Speer  -U! 


I0.Z(>1^ 


LIBRARY  OF  THE  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY 

PRINCETON,     N.    J. 

Presented  by 

TWeWidovV  of   Ueoroe Huic^'^n  ^      ?^ 

BV  2851  .S7  1915 

Speer,  Robert  E.  1867-1947. 

South  American  problems 


J 


-0 


171 


SOUTH   AMERICAN 
PROBLEMS 


D 


SOUTH    AMERICAN 
PROBLEMS 


BY 

ROBERT   E.'SPEER 


NEW  YORK 

STUDENT    VOLUNTEER    MOVEMENT 
FOR   FOREIGN   MISSIONS 

(third  edition.) 

I9I5. 


Copyright,  1912,  by 

STUDENT  VOLUNTEER  MOVEMENT 

FOR  FOREIGN  MISSIONS 

All  rights  reserved 


PREFACE 

We  call  the  South  American  people  a  Latin  peo- 
ple. In  part  they  are.  The  foreign  blood  that  is 
in  them  is  for  the  most  part  Latin  blood.  The  upper 
class  is  dominantly  and  sometimes  purely  of  Latin 
blood.  But  a  great  proportion  of  South  Amer- 
ican blood  is  not  Latin  but  Indian.  Nevertheless, 
the  charm  of  the  Latin  inheritance  is  over  the  whole 
continent  and  no  one  can  visit  it  and  not  come  away 
without  grateful  memories  of  a  warm-hearted, 
quick-minded,  high-spirited  people,  citizens  of  a 
mighty  land  and  forerunners  of  a  mighty  future. 
And  the  easy  course  for  one  who  is  asked  to  pre- 
sent his  impressions  is  to  picture  the  surface  life  of 
these  nations  and  pass  by  the  great  political  and  in- 
tellectual and  moral  problems  which  they  are  facing. 
This  easy  course  is  not  the  course  which  can  secure 
much  help  for  South  America  and  it  cannot  carry 
us  very  far  toward  a  worthy  understanding  of  our 
own  duty. 

The  only  things  of  real  interest  are,  first,  the  facts 
as  they  are,  and  second,  what  the  facts  can  and 
ought  to  be.  We  make  no  real  headway  by  evasion 
and  concealment,  by  rosy  deception  and  smooth  flat- 
teries.   We  need  first  of  all  to  look  squarely  at  the 


VI  PREFACE 

truth.  That  is  what  is  attempted  here.  It  is  not 
attempted  in  any  Pharisaical  spirit.  It  is  attempted 
with  full  acceptance  of  the  principle,  "  With  what 
judgment  ye  judge,  ye  shall  be  judged."  No  hon- 
est American  can  flincV  from  the  straightest  and 
sternest  judgment  of  his  nation  and  he  will  not  for 
a  moment  dodge  the  reaction  upon  himself  of  the 
contention  of  this  book. 

That  contention  is  that  where  such  need  exists 
as  exists  in  South  America,  there  is  a  call  for  every 
agency  which  can  do  anything  to  meet  it.  The  in- 
evitable corollary  is  that  if  such  need  or  any  need 
exists  in  North  America  which  South  America  or 
Europe  can  help  us  meet,  it  is  their  duty  to  give 
and  it  will  be  our  pleasure  to  have  their  help. 

The  difficulty  in  analyzing  the  South  American 
situation  lies  in  the  need  of  discriminating  between 
the  responsibility  of  the  South  American  religious 
system  and  the  burden  of  the  racial  inheritance. 
Some  lay  the  full  load  upon  one,  some  upon  the 
other,  lit  belongs  to  both.  Any  Church  would  have 
found  the  problem  difficult.  Any  race  would  have 
been  depressed  and  retarded  by  the  South  American 
ecclesiastical  institutions. 

Some  students  deprecate  all  such  judgments  as 
harsh  and  intolerant.  They  say  that  we  must  judge 
men  and  institutions  by  their  conditions  and  their 
age,  that  a  just  sense  of  the  relativity  of  moral  prin- 
ciples will  lead  us  to  overlook  facts  which  in  another 


PREFACE  Vii 

age  or  in  other  lands  would  appall  us.  On  the  other 
hand,  we  are  content  to  take  the  view  of  the  great- 
est Roman  Catholic  historian  of  the  last  generation, 
Lord  Acton.  It  had  become  "  almost  a  trick  of 
style,"  say  the  editors  of  his  famous  volume  on 
"  The  History  of  Freedom  and  Other  Essays,'*  "  to 
talk  of  judging  men  by  the  standard  of  their  day 
and  to  allege  the  spirit  of  the  age  in  excuse  for  the 
Albigensian  Crusade  or  the  burning  of  Hus.  Acton 
felt  that  this  was  to  destroy  the  very  bases  of  moral 
judgment  and  to  open  the  way  to  a  boundless  scep- 
ticism. Anxious  as  he  was  to  uphold  the  doctrine 
of  growth  in  theology,  he  allowed  nothing  for  it  in 
the  realm  of  morals,  at  any  rate  in  the  Christian 
era,  since  the  thirteenth  century.  He  demanded  a 
code,  of  moral  judgment  independent  of  place  and 
time,  and  not  merely  relative  to  a  particular  civiliza- 
tion. ...  It  is  this  preaching  in  season  and  out  of 
season  against  the  reality  of  wickedness,  and  against 
every  interference  with  the  conscience,  that  is  the 
real  inspiration  both  of  Acton's  life  and  of  his  writ- 
ings. 

"It  is  related  of  Frederick  Robertson  of  Brigh- 
ton, that  during  one  of  his  periods  of  intellectual 
perplexity  he  found  that  the  only  rope  to  hold  fast 
by  was  the  conviction,  *  it  must  be  right  to  do  right.' 
The  whole  of  Lord' Acton's  career  might  be  summed 
up  in  a  counterphrase,  *  it  must  be  wrong  to  do 
wrong.'  " 


Vm  PREFACE 

And  as  it  is  always  wrong  to  do  wrong,  so  also 
it  is  always  right  to  do  right.  That  is  why  it  is 
both  the  right  and  the  duty  of  true  Christians  of 
every  Church  and  of  none  more  than  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church  in  the  United  States  to  give  sym- 
pathy and  help  to  the  aspiring  people  of  South 
America  who  are  wrestling  with  great  problems  and 
who  deserve  in  their  wrestling  the  good-will  and 
practical  aid  of  all  friendly  men. 

No  publications  on  South  America  are  richer  in 
information  than  those  of  the  Pan-American  Union 
in  Washington,  formerly  known  as  The  Interna- 
tional Bureau  of  the  American  Republics.  Readers 
wishing  the  latest  statistics  and  reports  from  the 
South  American  nations  should  write  to  the  office  of 
the  Union. 

R.  E.  S. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER   I 

THE   GREAT   PAST 

The  early  peoples — The  discoverers  and  explorers — The 
governors — Gains  and  losses  from  the  Latin  conquest — The 
liberators — Causes  of  movements  toward  independence — 
Struggle  for  liberty  in  various  states — The  republics — Their 
inheritance — Frequency  of  South  American  revolutions. 

Page  s 

CHAPTER   n 

THE   SOUTH   AMERICAN   REPUBLICS   OF  TO-DAY 

General  aspects — The  more  advanced  nations — Argentina — 
Brazil — Chile — Uruguay — The  less  advanced  nations — Para- 
guay— Bolivia — Peru — Ecuador — Colombia — Venezuela — Pana- 
ma— South  American  cities — Taxation — Foreign  trade — Im- 
migration— Causes  of  South  America's  backwardness. 

Page  33 

CHAPTER   in 

THE   PROBLEM   OF   EDUCATION 

Education  in  colonial  times — Present  conditions — The  more 
advanced  nations — Argentina — Chile — Brazil — Uruguay — The 
less  advanced  nations — Peru — Colombia — Ecuador — Venezuela 
— Bolivia — Paraguay— Weakness  of  South  American  educa- 
tion— Lack  of  solidity — Unadaptiveness — Want  of  trained 
teachers — Neglect  of  education  of  women— Neglect  of  primary 

education  and  consequent  illiteracy Page  82 

ix 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER    IV 

THE  ROMAN  CHURCH  AND  THE  PROBLEM  OP  RELIGIOUS 
LIBERTY 

The  founding  and  development  of  the  Roman  Church  in 
South  America — Pioneer  priests — Priestly  orders — The  Jesu- 
its— Results  of  Church's  work  in  colonial  days — The  problem 
of  religious  liberty — Gradual  assertion  of  the  spirit  of  free- 
dom— Church  and  State  not  yet  separate — Alternations  in  the 
movement   towards   liberty Page  113 


CHAPTER   V 

PRESENT   RELIGIOUS   CONDITIONS 

Present  religious  conditions — South  America  claimed  as  a 
Roman  Catholic  continent — Conditions  for  which  responsi- 
bility is  assumed — Social  immorality — Illiteracy  and  igno- 
rance— Practical  prohibition  of  Bible  to  people — Character  of 
priesthood — Note  on  alleged  correspondence  between  the 
Vatican  and  the  Archbisoph  of  Santiago  in  1897.  .Page  141 

CHAPTER   VI 
PRESENT  RELIGIOUS  CONDITIONS   (continued) 

Christianity  not  really  given  to  people — Citations  from  "The 
Glories  of  Mary " — Religion  encumbered  with  pagan  super- 
stition— Confusion  of  religion  with  politics — Strength  and 
weakness  of  Roman  Church  in  South  America — Two  testi- 
monies from  within Page  169 

CHAPTER   VII 

THE   INDIANS 

The  Indian  blood  in  the  South  Americans— Effects  on  the 
Indians  of  the  Latin  occupation  of  the  continent — The  pure 


CONTENTS  n 

Indians  —  Argentina  —  Paraguay  —  Patagonia — Chile — Brazil — 
Bolivia — Peru — Colombia  and  Ecuador — Summary — Probable 
Indian   population — Depth   of   their   need Page   196 


CHAPTER  VIII 

PROTESTANT   MISSIONS   IN   SOUTH   AMERICA 

Sketch  of  history  and  extent  of  Protestant  missions — Four 
questions  involved — Are  such  missions  in  South  America 
warranted? — Evidence  already  presented — Additional  consid- 
erations— Can  Protestant  missions  avoid  Roman  opposition? 
— If  not,  should  they  be  continued? — How  may  they  secure 
adequate   recognition   and   support? Page  21J 

Bibliography Page    257 

Index , Page  263 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

Avenlda  Central,  Rio  de  Janeiro  ;  Opened  Through  the  City  in 
1904 Frontispiece 

FACING 
PAGE 

A  Group  of  Alcaldes  of  Peru;  Village  Presidents,  De- 
scendants of  the  Incas 6 

Cuzco,  Peru;  Ancient  Inca  Capital 14 

Docks  and  Grain  Elevators  at  Buenos  Aires,  Argentina       .  36 

Gathering  Coffee,  Sao  Paulo,  Brazil 42 

Immigrant  Station,    Sao  Paulo;   the  "Ellis  Island"  of 

Brazil 72 

Methodist  School  for  Boys,  Concepcion,  Chile      ...  88 

Modem  Public  School,  Sao  Paulo,  Brazil   ....  92 

The  Old  Jesuit  Church  in  Cuzco,  Peru 116 

Statue  of  General  Bolivar,  and  Senate  Building,  Lima,  Peru  122 

Santa  Lucia,  a  Pleasure  Ground  of  Santiago,  Chile     .       ,  122 

Office  of  Leading  Newspaper,  El  Mercurio,  Santiago,  Chile  152 
Avenue  of  Palm  Trees  in  Rio  de  Janeiro,  Brazil        .       .186 

Arequipa,  Peru;  Mount  Misti  in  the  Distance     .       .       .  186 

Fountain  in  Buenos  Aires,  Argentina 190 

Loads  of  Sugar  Cane,  Bahia,  Brazil 206 

Indians  in  Bolivia 206 

Harbor,  Rio  de  Janeiro,  Brazil 220 

Mackenzie  College,  Sao  Paulo,  Brazil 246 

Map End  of  book 


SOUTH   AMERICAN 
PROBLEMS 


CHAPTER   I 

THE   GREAT    PAST 

I.  The  early  peoples.  The  origin  and  character 
of  the  earliest  South  American  civiHzation  are  com- 
pletely hidden  from  view.  The  most  ancient  traces 
of  man  on  the  continent  are  the  "  kitchen-midden  " 
found  on  the  coast  of  Peru,  consisting  of  sea  shells 
and  refuse,  mixed  with  fragments  of  earthen  pots 
and  ashes  and  occasionally  the  implements  used  by 
these  primitive  people.  After  these  men,  who  lived 
on  sea-food,  there  came  more  advanced  tribes  of 
whom  we  know  nothing  except  what  may  be  inferred 
from  their  pottery  and  textures  found  in  the  deepest 
layers  of  the  soil.  This  development,  such  as  it  was, 
was  confined  to  the  sea  coast.  It  was  followed  by  a 
wonderful  civilization  on  the  high  tablelands.  Where 
this  civilization  came  from  is  a  mystery.  We  know 
nothing  of  how  long  it  lasted  or  what  its  nature  was 
except  as  its  architectural  ruins  show  that  it  had  Ori- 
ental kinships  and  that  it  was  as  interesting  as  it  was 
powerful.  These  ruins  can  be  seen  well  to-day  at 
Tiahuanaco,  in  Bolivia,  just  south  of  Lake  Titacaca. 
Immense  stone  pillars  and  gateways,  which  must  have 
been  brought  from  great  distances,  prove  that  a  peo- 
ple lived  on  these  high  tablelands  in  centuries  which 
we  cannot  fix  now,  akin  to  the  race  which  left  its 
massive  monuments  in  Central  America  and  Mexico, 


4  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

and  capable  of  as  great  achievements  as  the  ancient 
Egyptians.  Of  their  ideas  and  language  we  know 
nothing;  but  it  is  evident  that  their  influence  extended 
from  Colombia  on  the  North  to  Chile  on  the  South, 
and  as  far  as  Tucuman  and  the  Gran  Chaco  in  what 
is  now  Argentina. 

This  ancient  pre-Inca  civilization  disappeared  cen- 
turies before  the  discovery  of  America.  Its  remains, 
however,  were  scattered  over  the  whole  Andean 
plateau  and  "  on  this  base  of  an  ancient  culture,  not 
entirely  lost  in  its  effects,  although  its  remembrance 
had  disappeared  from  the  memory  of  men,  a  new  era 
of  splendor  easily  revived "  under  the  dominion  of 
the  Incas.^  Prescott's  "  History  of  the  Conquest  of 
Peru  "  presents  the  classic  picture  of  the  Inca  civili- 
zation, but  it  is  hard  to  separate  fact  from  fable  in 
the  authorities  on  which  all  such  accounts  must  be 
based.  The  Incas  had  no  written  language  or  litera- 
ture, and  while  ''  there  exist  ancient  chronicles  writ- 
ten by  some  of  the  conquerors  and  missionaries  .  .  . 
it  is  impossible  to  place  absolute  confidence  in  these 
narratives."  ^  So  that  the  real  character  of  the  em- 
pire of  the  Incas  and  the  conditions  of  the  South 
American  people  at  the  time  of  the  Spanish  conquest 
are  but  uncertainly  known  to  us.  It  seems  clear, 
however,  that  there  was  a  widespread,  socialistic, 
theocratic  civilization  organized  and  administered  by 
the  Incas,  and  reaching  from  Colombia  to  central  Chile 
and  the  Argentine.  Wonderful  schemes  of  irrigation 
and  not  less  wonderful  systems  of  roads  were  con- 
structed. Armies  were  organized  which  brought  the 
whole  Andean  plateau  under  the  Inca  sovereigns,  who 
appear  to  have  possessed  from  the  eleventh  century, 

»  Garland,  "Peru  in   1906,"  5.  2  jbid,,  n. 


THE  GREAT    PAST  5 

when  tradition  says  they  first  came  upon  the  scene, 
a  sacred,  semi-divine  character.  The  Inca  empire 
had  reached  its  greatest  prosperity  in  the  generation 
before  the  Spaniards  came,  and  the  disruption  of 
that  prosperity  by  civil  war  was  one  of  the  conditions 
which  played  into  Pizarro's  hands  when,  with  a  hand- 
ful of  audacious  desperadoes  like  himself,  he  came 
for  glory  and  gold. 

Apart  from  the  Incas  the  only  other  great  people 
in  South  America,  whom  we  can  identify,  were  the 
Caras  of  Ecuador.  Tradition  says  that  they  came 
from  the  South  in  the  seventh  century  and  invaded 
the  seaboard  of  central  Ecuador,  and  by  the  thir- 
teenth century  the  outHnes  of  their  empire,  which  was 
ruled  by  a  male  succession,  appear.  The  Cara  king- 
dom reached  its  zenith  at  the  end  of  the  fourteenth 
century,  after  which  it  was  overthrown  and  absorbed 
by  the  Incas.  The  Caras  were  a  vigorous  stock,  how- 
ever, and  survived  the  Inca  conquest  and  also  "  out- 
lived the  decimating  tyranny  of  the  Spaniards,  so  that 
ninety-five  per  cent  of  the  present  population  [of 
Ecuador]   is  composed  of  their  descendants."  ^ 

The  Incas  and  the  Caras  are  the  only  South  Ameri- 
can races  which  attained  any  sort  of  organized  and 
advanced  civilization.  And  their  civilization  was  weak 
and  inarticulate.  History  has  shown  us  in  their  fate 
the  frailty  of  a  socialistic  order.  Under  the  Incas  the 
State  controlled  everything — agriculture,  commerce, 
marriage,  work  and  play.  The  result  was  that  when 
the  central  government  fell,  the  whole  civilization 
collapsed. 

Those   thousands   of   functionaries   who   spent   their   lives 
in    superintending   the    furniture,   the   dress,    the   work,   the 
*  Dawson,  "  South  American  Republics,"  Vol.   II,  28gi. 


6  SOUTH   AMERICAN   PROBLEMS 

very  cookery,  of  the  families  under  their  charge,  and  inflict- 
ing corporal  chastisement  on  those  whom  they  surprised  in 
a  fault,  might  succeed  in  forming  a  correct  and  regular  soci- 
ety, drilled  like  the  bees  in  a  hive,  might  form  a  nation  of 
submissive  slaves,  but  could  never  make  a  nation  of  men; 
and  this  is  the  deep  cause  that  explains  the  irremediable 
collapse  of  this  Peruvian  society  under  the  vigorous  blows  of  a 
handful  of  unscrupulous  Spaniards.  It  was  a  skilfully  con- 
structed machine,  which  worked  like  a  chronometer;  but 
when  once  the  mainspring  was  broken,  all  was  over.i' 

Beyond  the  empires  of  the  Incas  and  Caras  the 
native  peoples  were  Indians  with  a  primitive  social 
and  political  order,  not  very  different  probably  from 
the  Indians  of  the  present  time.  The  strongest  and 
most  virile  race  among  them  were  the  Araucanians  of 
Chile,  who  showed  themselves  well  nigh  unconquer- 
able and  whose  sturdy,  truculent  qualities  character- 
ize the  Chilean  people  of  to-day.  In  Brazil,  covering 
one-half  of  the  continent,  and  with  an  Indian  popula- 
tion whose  size  is  absolutely  unknown  to  us,  there  was 
only  a  stagnant  and  rudimentary  civilization,  and  the 
Brazilian  Indians  melted  away  before  the  white  man's 
coming  even  more  pitifully  than  the  Indians  of  the 
Andean  plateau.^ 

The  savage  Indians  of  South  America,  whom  the 
discoverers  found,  were  tame  and  feeble  in  compari- 
son with  the  Indians  of  North  America,  and  while  the 
civilization  of  the  Incas  surpassed  that  of  the  Aztecs 
in  Mexico,  their  resisting  power  was  as  nothing  in 
comparison  with  the  energy  and  fierceness  of  the 
Aztec  race.  The  differences  between  North  and  South 
America  to-day  are  not  more  the  transported  differ- 
ences between  the  Latin  and  the  Germanic  peoples 

^  Reville,   "  The    Native    Religions   of    Mexico    and   Peru,"    igSi. 
2  Dawson,  "  South  American  Republics,"  Vol.  I,  298 f. 


THE   GREAT   PAST  7 

than  the  continuance  of  the  ancient  and  primitive  dis- 
similarities. "  It  is  a  common  misconception  on  the 
part  of  the  EngHsh  pubHc  that  the  racial  basis  of  the 
South  American  peoples  is  Spanish  or  Portuguese.  It 
is  not  so — it  is  Indian;  for  it  is  only  another  miscon- 
ception to  suppose  that  the  native  races  were  wiped 
out  by  the  Conquistadores."  ^  They  were  decimated 
by  disease  and  misuse,  but  at  the  same  time  they  were 
made  the  stock  upon  which  the  Latin  blood  from 
Europe  was  grafted.  To  this  day  no  small  part  of 
the  diversities  of  character  among  the  South  American 
republics  is  due  to  the  differences  in  the  Indian  racial 
stocks — Quichua,  Aymara,  Araucanian,  Guarany;  and 
in  the  Latin  racial  grafts — Galician,  Basques,  Catalo- 
nian,  Andalusian,  Portuguese. 

II.  The  discoverers  and  explorers.  Brazil  was  one 
of  the  first  parts  of  South  America  to  be  discovered 
and  the  men  who  really  found  it  were  not  Spaniards 
but  Portuguese,  though  Pinzon,  a  Spaniard  of  Palos, 
and  one  of  the  companions  of  Columbus,  was  the  first 
European  to  see  the  new  continent.  Before  Pinzon 
reached  the  limit  of  his  journey,  the  mouth  of  the 
Amazon,  Portugal  had  despatched  Pedro  Alvarez 
Cabral,  who  in  April,  1500,  sighted  what  is  now  the 
State  of  Bahia.  The  Portuguese  were  looking  for 
such  a  treasure  as  Spain  soon  afterwards  found  in 
Peru  and  Mexico  and  upon  Cabral's  return  and  re- 
port, Amerigo  Vespucci,  whose  name  was  given  to  the 
new  world,  and  the  greatest  technical  navigator  of 
the  age,  was  sent  to  explore.  He  looked  for  gold  and 
spices  and  civilized  inhabitants  and  found  nothing  but 
the  brazil-wood,  a  dye  wood  well  known  and  highly 
valued  in  Europe,  of  a  bright  red  color  which  gave  it 

'^The  Times,  London,  South  America  Supplement,  August  30*  1910,  11. 


8  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

its  name,  "wood  the  color  of  fire."  This  name  soon 
displaced  the  name  of  Santa  Cruz  which  had  been 
given  to  the  land,  and  it  became  "  the  country  of  brazil 
wood,"  or,  more  briefly,  Brazil.  For  thirty  years  Brazil 
was  left  unsettled.  There  was  greater  wealth  else- 
where, but  increasing  French  trade  led  Portugal  to 
recognize  the  need  of  occupying  the  land  in  some 
formal  way,  and  Martin  Affonso  de  Souza  founded 
the  first  colony  at  Sao  Vincento,  near  the  great  cof- 
fee port  of  Santos,  in  January,  1532.  The  new- 
comers soon  pressed  up  to  the  high  tablelands  only  a 
few  miles  from  the  sea,  and  another  settlement  was 
founded  near  the  present  city  of  Sao  Paulo.  The 
people  intermarried  with  the  Indians  and  struck  out 
into  the  beautiful  interior.  The  PauHstas,  as  they  are 
called,  became  a  stirring,  capable  race,  the  European 
element  increasing  with  fresh  immigration  and  show- 
ing also  a  capacity  of  reproduction  superior  to  the 
Indian.  As  a  result  of  the  success  of  these  colonies, 
the  whole  coast  of  Brazil  was  divided  into  twelve 
feudal  fiefs  or  captaincies,  and  assigned  to  courtiers. 
Six  permanent  colonies  resulted,  and  ultimately  the 
four  centers  for  the  settlement  of  the  country  became 
Sao  Paulo,  Pernambuco,  Bahia  and  Rio  de  Janeiro. 
The  sugar  industry  was  soon  established  at  Pernam- 
buco. The  law  of  Portugal  forbade  the  enslavement 
of  the  Indians  save  as  punishment  for  crime,  but 
Brazil  paid  no  attention  to  the  law,  and  with  the  es- 
tablishment of  the  sugar  trade  in  Bahia,  the  import 
of  Africans  began  between  the  two  continents,  which 
were  not  far  apart.  The  Brazilian  occupation  was 
confined  to  the  coast,  and  to-day  there  are  still  vast 
unexplored  areas  in  the  interior  of  the  land. 

Columbus  himself  began  the  Spanish  exploration  of 


THE   GREAT    PAST  9 

South  America.  On  his  third  voyage  he  sighted  the 
Venezuelan  coast  on  August  i,  1498.  The  country 
was  then  inhabited  by  numerous  Indian  tribes  who 
were  not  of  a  pacific  character  and  who  bitterly  fought 
against  the  cruelties  and  enslavements  of  the  Span- 
iards. Not  until  1545  were  permanent  settlements  ef- 
fected in  the  interior.  On  his  fourth  and  last  voyage 
in  1502  Columbus  sailed  along  the  Colombian  shore, 
but  no  attempt  to  conquer  the  country  was  made  until 
1508,  when  Ojeda  effected  a  settlement  on  the  coast. 
In  1536  Quesada  undertook  the  subjugation  of  the 
Chibchas,  a  civilized  people  similar  to  the  Incas  on  the 
high  plateau,  and  established  his  capitol,  the  present 
city  of  Bogota,  near  the  site  of  the  Chibcha  capitol. 
On  his  fourth  voyage  Columbus  sailed  on  to  Panama 
and  planted  a  colony  on  the  Isthmus  which  the  In- 
dians drove  away.  Not  until  1570  was  a  settlement 
effected  by  Diego  de  Nicuesa,  governor  of  the  prov- 
ince of  Castilla  del  Oro,  which  extended  from  the 
Gulf  of  Darien  to  Cape  Gracias  a  Dios.  In  15 13  Bal- 
boa crossed  the  Isthmus  after  a  journey  of  twenty-six 
days  and  discovered  the  Pacific  Ocean,  in  the  name  of 
the  King  of  Spain,  claiming  it  and  all  the  land  it  laved. 
Darien,  founded  by  Enciso  in  151 1,  and  Panama, 
founded  by  Davila  in  15 18,  became  the  great  centers 
of  Spanish  exploration,  and  as  these  were  the  treasure 
ports  from  which  the  gold  of  Peru  was  shipped,  they 
attracted  adventurers  from  all  lands. 

It  was  Pizarro  who  opened  this  wealth  of  Peru  to 
the  world  and  established  Spanish  dominion  on  the 
whole  Andean  plateau.  In  1532,  after  several  experi- 
mental expeditions  with  a  little  company  of  one  hun- 
dred and  two  foot  soldiers  and  seventy-two  horses, 
the   daring   adventurer    seized   the   Inca   emperor   at 


lO  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

Cajamarca,  overpowered  his  futile  soldiery  and  took 
possession  of  Peru,  gathering  in  as  the  first  booty  gold 
worth  more  than  four  millions  sterling.  Pizarro 
wasted  no  time  and  stood  on  no  scruples.  The  Inca 
emperor  he  slew,  the  wealth  he  confiscated,  and 
within  half  a  dozen  years  the  whole  of  the  vast  region 
ruled  by  the  Inca  power  was  overrun  and  subdued. 
Pizarro's  lieutenant,  Benalcazar,  conquered  the  north- 
ern region  of  Ecuador  and  entered  Quito  on  Decem- 
ber 6,  1534.  Pizarro's  brother,  Gonzalo,  was  ap- 
pointed Governor  of  the  Province  of  Quito,  and  here, 
as  elsewhere,  the  Spaniards  apportioned  the  land  and 
people  among  themselves  and  established  feudal  es- 
tates on  which  they  lived  upon  the  labor  of  the  natives. 
To  the  south  of  Peru,  Pizarro's  triumph  was  even 
easier,  and  his  brother  Hernando  was  given  charge  of 
Bolivia.  Almagro,  another  of  Pizarro's  lieutenants, 
was  sent  further  south  to  Chile,  but  here  he  encoun- 
tered a  vigorous,  hardy  people,  not  debilitated  by  the 
weakening  socialism  of  the  Incas.  Individual  owner- 
ship of  property,  rough  struggle  with  nature  and  men, 
had  made  the  Chilean  tribes  strong  and  virile,  and 
though  Almagro  was  victorious  in  his  battle  he  soon 
turned  back  from  such  an  inhospitable  and  goldless 
land.  Returning  to  dispute  with  Pizarro  his  posses- 
sion of  the  wealth  of  Peru,  Almagro  fell  at  Pizarro's 
hands  and  the  conquest  of  Chile  was  accomplished  in 
1540-45  by  another  Heutenant,  Pedro  Valdivia,  who 
after  heroic  marches  and  campaigns  subdued  the  land 
and  set  up  the  landed  aristocracy  which  rules  the 
country  to  this  day.  In  the  thirty  years  following 
Valdivia's  invasion,  settlers  from  Chile  and  Bolivia 
passed  over  the  Andes  and  established  Santiago  del 
Estero,  Mendoza  and  Cordoba  in  western  Argentina. 


c< 


THE   GREAT    PAST  11 

Pedro  de  Mendoza  founded  Buenos  Aires  in  1536, 
although  it  was  not  till  forty-four  years  later  that  the 
settlement  was  securely  established.  The  natural  ap- 
proach from  Europe  to  the  valley  of  the  Rio  de  la  Plata 
and  its  tributaries  was,  of  course,  direct  by  sea,  and  Juan 
Diaz  de  Solis,  coming  by  water,  is  credited  with  hav- 
ing discovered  the  great  river  in  15 15.  The  explorer 
lost  his  Hfe  at  the  hands  of  the  Uruguayan  Indians, 
and  it  is  an  odd  fact  that  Paraguay,  far  inland,  was 
an  earlier  settlement  than  Uruguay  on  the  sea.  A 
settlement  was  made  on  the  site  of  Asuncion,  the  pres- 
ent Paraguayan  capital,  in  1536,  while  the  first  per- 
manent establishments  in  Uruguay  were  not  set  up 
until  the  Jesuits  came  in  1624. 

The  rapidity  with  which  the  Spanish  explorers 
overran  the  western  and  southern  sections  of  the  con- 
tinent is  extraordinary.  In  fifty  years  they  had  laid 
the  foundations  of  practically  all  the  Spanish  states 
which  are  now  organized  as  nine  independent  republics. 
One  reason  for  the  rapidity  of  conquest  was  the  fact 
that  the  Spaniards  had  not  come  as  agricultural  set- 
tlers, but  as  adventurers  for  gold.  They  were  looking 
for  quick  and  easy  wealth.  They  did  no  more  work 
themselves  than  was  unavoidable.  They  were  equal 
to  any  heroism  but  to  no  industry.  The  Indian  popu- 
lations were  impressed  to  support  and  enrich  them. 
The  newcomers  passed  on  to  their  children  no  in- 
heritance of  industrious  conflict  with  common  condi- 
tions, no  disposition  to  seek  wealth  in  the  orderly 
development  of  common  resources,  no  agricultural 
knowledge,  but  only  the  dominant  ideas  of  quick  ac- 
tion or  feudal  ease. 

III.  The  governors.  Upon  the  discovery  of  the 
new  world,  the  Pope  made  a  division  of  the  globe 


12  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

between  Portugal  and  Spain,  and  the  two  countries, 
by  the  Treaty  of  Tordesillas  in  1494,  had  fixed  the 
line  of  division.  The  lands  which  they  discovered  they 
claimed  to  possess  and  undertook  at  once  to  govern. 
The  era  of  independent  adventurers  and  proprietors 
soon  passed,  and  the  two  nations  marked  out  prov- 
inces and  viceroyalties  and  organized  permanent  po- 
litical institutions. 

In  Brazil  the  captaincies  were  reabsorbed  by  the 
Portuguese  crown,  and  Thome  de  Souza  was  ap- 
pointed governor-general  and  arrived  in  Bahia  in 
April,  1549,  with  six  Jesuits,  the  first  to  set  foot  in 
the  new  world.  There  were  struggles  with  the 
French  and  the  Dutch,  and  in  the  South  with  the 
Spaniards,  but  Portuguese  power  was  steadily  solidi- 
fied. The  colonists  were  heavily  taxed  for  the  benefit 
of  Portugal.  Brazil  learned  thus  early  to  bear  a 
crushing  burden,  or  it  could  not  endure  to-day  the 
load  of  internal  revenue  duties  which  retards  the  de- 
velopment of  the  land  and  makes  the  prices  even  of 
home  manufactures  exorbitant.  '*  All  goods  imported 
from  the  mother  country  paid  twelve  per  cent  duty. 
Salt  and  iron  were  taxed  one  hundred  per  cent.  Every 
article  introduced  into  the  mining  districts  was  sur- 
charged 2d.  per  lb."  ^  A  printing  press  appearing 
in  Rio  was  ordered  to  be  destroyed  by  the  Court. 
The  country  was  supported  on  slaves  and  forced  In- 
dian labor.  Nevertheless,  the  land  with  its  immense 
resources  and  small  population,  less  than  3,000,000 
people  in  1800,  the  number  of  Indians  unknown,  in 
a  country  as  big  as  Russia  or  the  United  States,  great- 
ly prospered,^  and  in  1807  John,  the  Prince  Regent  of 
Portugal,  fleeing  from  Napoleon,  transferred  the  Por- 

»Oakenfull,   "Brazil   in    1909,"    67.  'Ibid.,    63. 


THE   GREAT    PAST  I3 

tuguese  Court  from  Lisbon  to  Rio,  and  soon  raised 
the  colony  to  coordinate  rank  with  the  mother  coun- 
try. This  transfer  of  the  Court  transformed  Brazil. 
In  spite  of  the  Regent's  dread  of  Liberalism,  the 
opening  of  free  ports,  the  allowance  of  free  manu- 
facture, the  tide  of  immigration,  the  introduction  of 
the  printing  press  and  the  advent  of  the  best  elements 
from  Portugal  produced  a  steady  development  of 
political  consciousness.  The  adoption  of  a  liberal 
constitution  by  Spain  in  1820  led,  by  example,  to  a 
demand  for  constitutional  government  in  Brazil  which 
was  taken  up  by  Dom  Pedro,  John's  son,  and  issued 
in  the  establishment  of  an  independent  monarchy  with 
Dom  Pedro  as  emperor. 

Pizarro  was  the  ruler  of  the  Spanish  territories 
south  of  Panama  until  his  assassination  by  Almagro's 
followers  in  1541,  in  Lima  which  Pizarro  had  built 
as  his  capital  city.  Upon  Pizarro's  death  the  right  to 
nominate  a  governor  reverted  to  the  Spanish  Crown, 
and  in  1542  the  viceroyalty  of  Peru  was  established. 
For  nearly  three  centuries  Peru  was  governed  in  the 
name  of  the  King  of  Spain  by  a  succession  of  thirty- 
eight  viceroys,  and  when  there  was  no  viceroy,  power 
was  provisionally  exercised  by  a  Court  of  Justice,  or, 
as  it  was  called,  the  Real  Audiencia  de  Lima,  founded 
in  1544. 

Though  the  viceroys  who  followed  each  other  in  rapid 
succession  were  selected  from  among  the  greatest  grandees 
of  Spain,  they  were  held  to  an  increasingly  rigid  account, 
and  the  smallest  concession  to  commerce  or  a  failure  to  send 
home  the  utmost  farthing  which  could  be  wrung  from  the 
people  was  severely  and  peremptorily  punished.  Their  juris- 
diction extended  over  all  Spanish  South  America;  the  cap- 
tains-general of  New  Granada,  Venezuela,  and  Chile,  the 
royal  audience  of  Bolivia,  the  president  of  Ecuador,  and  the 


14  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

governors  of  Tucuman,  Paraguay,  and  Buenos  Aires  being 
all  nominally  subject  to  their  orders.  But  in  practice  these 
widely  separated  divisions  of  the  continent  were  largely  in- 
dependent. Lima  was,  however,  the  political,  commercial, 
and  social  center  of  South  America.  To  its  port  came  from 
Panama  the  goods  destined  for  Peru,  Chile,  Bolivia,  and  even 
Paraguay  and  Buenos  Aires.  Many  of  the  viceroys  were 
lovers  of  letters,  and  the  university  produced  scholars  and 
authors  not  unworthy  of  comparison  with  those  of  the  old 
world.  The  continual  influx  of  Spaniards  of  distinguished 
Castilian  ancestry  and  gentle  training  made  the  language  of 
even  the  common  people  singularly  pure,  and  the  sonorous 
elegance  of  the  Spanish  tongue  as  spoken  during  the  classical 
period  has  been  best  preserved  in  the  comparative  isolation 
of  Peru.  The  influence  of  the  bishops  and  priests,  the  Jesuits 
and  the  Franciscans,  was  hardly  inferior  to  that  of  the  offi- 
cials. The  clergy  controlled  education ;  every  village  had  its 
parish  priest  who  compelled  the  Indians  to  go  to  mass  and 
made  them  pay  heavily  for  the  privilege ;  the  Inquisition  was 
early  introduced  and  performed  its  dreadful  functions  with- 
out let  or  hindrance.! 

The  Spaniards  founded  cities,  which  the  Indians 
had  never  done,  with  the  exception  of  Cuzco  in  Peru, 
Quito  in  Ecuador,  and  Charcas  in  Bolivia.  And  in 
spite  of  all  hindrances,  the  country  slowly  developed, 
although  not  without  grave  retrogressions.  The  nat- 
ural efforts  of  Spain  to  monopolize  all  trade  provoked 
smuggling  and  illegal  commerce,  and  in  order  to  ad- 
minister the  vast  territories  more  efficiently,  they  were 
divided,  in  the  eighteenth  century,  into  three  viceroy- 
alties,  (i)  New  Granada,  embracing  Venezuela,  Co- 
lombia and  Ecuador,  (2)  Peru,  corresponding  to  Peru 
of  to-day,  and  (3)  Buenos  Aires,  embracing  Paraguay 
and  what  is  now  the  Argentine  and  the  audiencia  of 
Charcas  9r  Bolivia.  Chile  remained  attached  to  Peru 
as  a  semi-independent  captaincy-general. 

*  Dawson,  '*  South  American  Republics,"  Vol.  II,  67S. 


THE   GREAT    PAST  I5 

The  dominant  object  of  both  Portuguese  and  Span- 
iards in  the  government  of  South  America  was  the 
rapid  exploitation  of  the  available  wealth  of  the  land, 
especially  gold  and  silver.  The  Europeans  did  not 
come  to  settle,  to  find  a  home  for  freedom,  to  increase 
the  local  wealth  and  prosperity.  They  came  to  de- 
plete that  wealth.  Their  ambition  was  to  return  with 
riches  and  power  to  the  homelands.  They  brought 
with  them  also  only  such  political  ideals  and  insti- 
tutions as  they  knew.  The  characteristic  form  of 
government  in  Spain  had  been  town  or  communal. 
Spain  was  not  a  centralized  or  unified  state.  Basques, 
Galicians  and  Andalusians  were  about  as  distinct  in 
character  and  temper  as  diverse  nationalities.  For 
centuries  Spain  had  been  a  set  of  loosely  joined  prov- 
inces and  the  provincial  governments  were  made  up 
of  municipalities.  These  characteristics  found  ex- 
pression in  the  new  w^orld.  There  was  no  strong 
sense  of  nationality,  no  notion  of  state  government 
resting  on  personal  rights  and  duties.  There  were 
only  the  old  ideas  of  semi-independent  feudal  divis- 
ions, with  a  ruling  privileged  class  and  an  under- 
world of  serfs. 

The  pure-blooded  Spaniard  never  lost  the  charac- 
ter of  an  alien  taskmaster,  and  to  this  day  the  South 
American  aristocracy  inclines  to  the  ideal  of  the  past — 
a  feudal  authority,  with  Europe  as  its  real  home,  the 
center  of  its  fashions  and  pleasures  and  ideas,  and  a 
dependent  and  inferior  class  supporting  it.  But  from 
the  beginning  there  grew  up  a  new  element  of  the 
population.  No  women  came  with  the  first  settlers, 
and  as  a  result  the  Europeans  took  native  wives  or 
concubines,  and  the  people  of  the  mixed  blood  who 
constitute  the  vast  bulk  of  the  South  American  popu- 


I6  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

lation  began.  At  first  the  conditions  of  this  new 
race  were  not  wholly  favorable.  It  was  not  the  best 
blood  of  Europe  that  was  mixed  with  the  Indian 
blood.  When  Cabral  discovered  Brazil,  we  are  offi- 
cially told,  he  "  ordered  a  solemn  mass  to  be  per- 
formed, took  a  solemn  possession  of  the  new  country 
for  the  Portuguese  crown,  and  then  set  out  to  India 
after  leaving  two  criminals  on  shore  that  they  might 
learn  the  language  of  the  country  and  afterwards 
serve  as  interpreters."  ^  This  same  official  memoir 
tells  of  Diego  Alvares,  the  first  great  Brazilian  col- 
onist, that  "  he  lived  among  the  Indians  of  Bahia  in  a 
state  of  concubinate  with  several  indigenous  women, 
by  whom  he  had  a  great  deal  of  children."  And  the 
same  authority  states  that  one  of  the  great  tasks  of 
the  Jesuits  when  they  came  to  Brazil  was  the 

mission  of  moralizing  the  colonial  society,  profoundly  cor- 
rupted by  the  bad  example  offered  by  the  semi-barbarous 
Portuguese  of  the  first  settlement.  A  great  many  newly 
come  Portuguese,  seduced  by  the  pernicious  examples  lying 
before  their  eyes,  lived  in  concubinate  with  a  great  deal  of 
female  Indians,  after  the  local  fashion,  or  with  them  whom 
they  singled  out  of  their  slaves.  The  priests  themselves  did 
the  same;  so  that  Nobrega  wrote  to  the  king,  on  August  9, 
1549,  that  the  laymen  took  a  very  bad  example  by  the  priests 
and  the  Gentiles  by  the  Christians;  that  the  interior  of  the 
country  was  full  of  Christians'  children,  both  young  and 
adult,  male  and  female,  who  lived  and  multiplied  after  the 
Gentile  way;  that  hate  and  disputes  were  to  be  found  every- 
where and  religious  and  judicial  affairs  were  badly  managed. 
Upon  this  the  Jesuits,  aided  by  the  governor,  obtained  the 
celebration  of  marriages ;  several  settlers  chose  indigenous 
slaves,  whom  they  freed  and  married,  others  married  the 
few  European  women  who  had  accompanied  the  expedition; 
wherefore  Nobrega  recommended  in  the  above-cited  letter 
orphan  girls  or  even  prostitutes  to  be  sent  to  Bahia,  for  they 

>Vianna,  "Memoir  of  the  State  of  Bahia,"  597. 


THE   GREAT    PAST  I7 

would  all  marry,  because  the  country  was  vast  and  un- 
civilized.^ 

And  it  cannot  be  denied  that  conditions  not  very  dis- 
similar characterized  the  Spanish  colonies.  But  while 
a  strain  of  moral  laxity  was  in  this  way  injected  into 
the  Latin  American  inheritance,  other  and  worthier 
qualities  passed  into  it  also,  such  qualities  as  daring, 
hopefulness,  venturesomeness,  devotion  to  a  chosen 
leadership,  and  racial  loyalty.^ 

Something  is  to  be  said  on  each  side  of  the  question 
whether  the  Latin  conquest  of  South  America  brought 
chiefly  advantage  or  disadvantage  to  the  continent 
and  its  people.  Looking  at  South  America  to-day 
and  contemplating  the  future,  assuredly  one  must  con- 
clude that  the  conquest  brought  gain  and  promise. 
And  even  from  the  beginning,  the  Spanish  occupation 
— and  the  same  thing  could  be  said  of  the  Portuguese, 

brought  many  incontestable  benefits  to  South  America.  To 
say  nothing  of  the  civilized  system  of  jurisprudence,  the  let- 
ters and  the  religion  which  have  made  the  peoples  of  the 
continent  members  of  the  great  western  European  family, 
the  introduction  of  new  and  valuable  animals,  grains,  and 
fruits  raised  the  level  of  average  well-being  among  the  sur- 
viving inhabitants.  Horses,  asses,  cattle,  sheep,  goats,  pigs, 
chickens,  pigeons,  wheat,  barley,  oats,  rice,  olives,  grapes, 
oranges,  sugar-cane,  apples,  peaches  and  related  fruits,  and 
even  the  banana  and  the  cocoa  palm  were  introduced  by  the 
Spaniards.3 

But  Mr.  Dawson  points  out  on  the  other  hand  the 
untold  sufferings  of  the  Indians,  the  widespread  de- 
struction of  their  civilization,  of  their  roads  and  irri- 

1  Vianna,   "Memoir   of  the   State   of   Bahia,"   610. 

*  See  "  Cambridge  Modern  History,"  Vol.  X,  chap,  viii,  for  a  com- 
prehensive and  penetrating  account  of  the  Spanish  Conquest  and  its 
cflFectB. 

'  Dawson,  "  South  American  Republics,"  Vol.  II,  66. 


l8  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

gating  canals  and  terraces,  so  that  Peru  to-day  is 
vastly  worse  off  in  these  regards  than  it  was  under  the 
Incas,  the  death  of  thousands  from  exhaustion  in  im- 
pressed toil,  the  starvation  of  whole  villages.  And 
when  the  mines  were  opened  the  natives  were  driven 
to  a  deadly  work  like  sheep  to  shambles.  The  Inca 
population,  whatever  it  may  have  been,  was  reduced 
to  8,000,000  in  1575,  and  in  Peru  proper  the  last  cen- 
sus taken  before  independence  showed  that  the  num- 
ber of  Indians  had  become  reduced  to  608,999  i^  ^ 
territory  which  at  the  time  of  the  conquest  had  a  popu- 
lation of  five  to  six  millions.  "  In  the  neighborhood 
of  Potosi  the  Indian  population  fell  within  a  hundred 
years  to  a  tenth  of  the  original  numbers."  ^  Dawson 
calls  the  colonial  period  "  the  devil's  dance  of  Spanish 
carnage,"  and  Las  Casas,  the  contemporary  defender 
of  the  Indians,  declared: 

"  The  Devil  could  not  have  done  more  mischief  than  the 
Spaniards  have  done  in  distributing  and  despoiling  the  coun- 
tries, in  their  rapacity  and  tyranny;  subjecting  the  natives  to 
cruel  tasks,  treating  them  like  beasts,  and  persecuting  those 
especially  who  apply  to  the  monks  for  instruction."  2 

Of  Brazil  Oaken  full  says :  "  The  exploitation  of  the 
Indians  was  a  vast  source  of  riches.  In  two  years 
no  fewer  than  80,000  arrived  on  the  coast,  in  the 
neighborhood  of  the  capital  (Bahia)  to  be  employed 
in  the  sugar  mills,  etc.  Almost  the  whole  of  these 
died  in  a  very  brief  space  of  time."  ^  The  South 
American  Indians,  far  more  numerous  and  far  less 
savage  than  the  Indians  in  the  United  States  and 
Canada,  offered  only  a  futile  resistance  to  an  exploita- 

1  Dawson,    "  South    American    Republics,"    Vol.    II,   58,    59,   64,   242; 
Garland,   "  Peru  in   1906,"    33-35. 

2  Quoted    by    Grose    in    "  Advance    in   the   Antilles,"    4. 
* "  Brazil   in    1909,"    54. 


THE   GREAT    PAST  I9 

tion  which  in  the  lands  settled  by  the  English  and 
French  was  not  attempted  because  the  aims  of  these 
people  in  their  settlement  were  so  radically  different 
from  the  aims  of  the  Spanish  and  Portuguese,  and 
which  would  have  been  impossible  if  it  had  been  at- 
tempted. Miscegenation  and  exploitation  were  two 
differentiating  characteristics  of  the  Latin  treatment 
of  the  Indians.  The  influence  of  this  fact  upon  the 
nature  of  the  problem  with  which  the  South  American 
nations  are  dealing  to-day  is  obvious. 

But  it  was  not  upon  the  native  people  alone  that 
Spanish  colonial  government  pressed  heavily.  It  was 
an  intolerable  burden  to  the  colonists  themselves. 
There  never  has  been  before  or  since  such  unqualified 
inbreeding  of  colonial  policy.  No  immigration  was 
permitted  but  Spanish  immigration.  Even  at  the  close 
of  the  eighteenth  century  it  was  with  difficulty  that 
Humboldt  secured  the  privilege  of  journeying  through 
the  country  for  scientific  purposes.^  The  vitality  and 
progressiveness  of  a  varied  immigration  were  denied 
to  South  America  until  the  nineteenth  century,  when 
it  began  to  come  in.  It  is  this  which  has  made  Chile 
and  Argentina  and  Brazil,  the  lands  chiefly  influenced 
by  it,  the  most  aggressive  and  active  of  the  South 
American  countries.  Venezuela,  Colombia,  Ecuador, 
Peru  and  Bolivia,  untouched  by  this  stream,  remain 
almost  as  they  have  been  for  centuries.  But  even  on 
the  Spanish  and  Portuguese  colonists  the  yoke  pressed 
unendurably  and  chafed  men  to  discontent  and  revolt. 

IV.  The  liberators.  Spain's  attitude  toward  her 
colonies  was  suicidal.  They  were  forbidden  to  trade 
with  foreign  nations  or  to  engage  in  traffic  between 
the   provinces.      And    innumerable    small    Hmitations 

1  See  Akers,  "A  History  of  South  America,   1854-1904." 


20  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

were  laid  upon  agriculture  and  commerce.  One  com- 
munity was  forbidden  to  plant  vines ;  another  to  sow 
flax.  One  place  could  not  export  wines  or  almonds; 
another  could  not  build  mills.  All  trade  had  to  pass 
through  Panama.  Even  the  trade  of  Argentina  could 
not  flow  directly  to  and  from  Spain,  but  goods  from 
Cadiz  for  Buenos  Aires  must  go  to  the  Isthmus,  be 
carried  across  on  mules  and  shipped  to  Peru,  there  to 
be  unloaded  at  Callao  and  carried  by  caravan  for 
months  over  the  Andean  plateau  and  across  the  plains 
of  the  Argentine.  The  manifesto  of  the  Constituent 
Congress  of  the  United  Provinces  of  South  America, 
issued  from  Buenos  Aires,  October  25,  181 7,  set  forth 
what  the  liberators  held  to  have  been  the  abuses  of 
Spain : 

From  the  moment  when  the  Spaniards  possessed  themselves 
of  these  countries,  they  preferred  the  system  of  securing 
their  possessions  by  extermination,  destruction  and  degrada- 
tion. The  plans  of  this  extensive  mischief  were  forthwith 
carried  into  effect,  and  have  been  continued  without  any  in- 
termission during  the  space  of  three  hundred  years.  They 
began  by  assassinating  the  monarchs  of  Peru  and  they  after- 
wards did  the  same  with  the  other  chieftains  and  distin- 
guished men  who  came  in  their  way.  .  .  .  The  Spaniards 
thus  placed  a  barrier  to  the  population  of  the  country.  .  .  . 
Entire  towns  have  in  some  places  disappeared,  either  buried 
in  the  ruins  of  mines,  or  their  inhabitants  destroyed  by  the 
compulsive  and  poisonous  labor  of  working  them.  .  .  .  The 
teaching  of  science  was  forbidden  us.  .  .  .  Commerce  has  at 
all  times  been  an  exclusive  monopoly  in  the  hands  of  the 
traders  of  Spain  and  the  consignees  they  sent  off  to  America. 
The  public  offices  were  reserved  for  Spaniards.  .  .  .  Among 
the  viceroys  who  have  governed  in  America,  four  natives 
of  the  country  alone  are  numbered;  and  602  captains-general 
and  governors,  with  the  exception  of  fourteen,  all  have  been 
Spaniards.  .  .  .  Everything  was  so  arranged  by  Spain  that 
the  degradation  of  the  natives  should  prevail  in  America. 
It  did  not  enter  into   her  views  that  wise  men   should  be 


THE   GREAT   PAST  21 

formed,  fearful  that  minds  and  talents  would  be  created 
capable  of  promoting  the  interests  of  their  country  and  caus- 
ing civilization,  manners,  and  those  excellent  capabilities  with 
which  the  Colombian  children  are  gifted,  to  make  a  rapid 
progress.  She  increasingly  diminished  our  population,  ap- 
prehensive that  some  day  or  other  it  might  be  in  a  state  to 
rise  against  a  dominion  sustained  only  by  a  few  hands,  to 
whom  the  keeping  of  detached  and  extensive  regions  was 
intrusted.  She  carried  on  an  exclusive  trade  because  the 
supposed  opulence  would  make  us  proud  and  inclined  to  free 
ourselves  from  outrage.  She  denied  to  us  the  advancement 
of  industry  in  order  that  we  might  be  divested  of  the  means 
of  rising  out  of  misery  and  poverty;  and  we  were  excluded 
from  offices  of  trust  in  order  that  Peninsulars  only  might 
hold  influence  in  the  country  and  form  the  necessary  habits 
and  inclinations,  with  a  view  to  leaving  us  in  such  a  state 
of  dependence  as  to  be  unable  to  think  or  act,  unless  accord- 
ing to   Spanish  forms. 

Such  was  the  system  firmly  and  steadily  upheld  by  the 
viceroys,  each  one  of  whom  bore  the  state  and  arrogance  of 
a  vizier.  .  .  .  We  held  neither  direct  nor  indirect  influence 
in  our  own  legislation;  this  was  instituted  in  Spain.  .  .  .  We 
were  aware  that  no  other  resource  was  left  to  us  than  pa- 
tience, and  that  for  him  who  was  not  resigned  to  endure  all, 
even  capital  punishment  was  not  sufficient,  since  for  cases 
of  this  kind  torments  new  and  of  unheard-of  cruelty  had 
been  invented,  such  as  made  nature  shudder. 

It  cannot  be  denied  that  this  was  a  temperate  state- 
ment, as  temperate  surely  as  our  Declaration  of  In- 
dependence. The  wrongs  of  the  British  colonies  in 
North  America  were  mild  and  beneficent  in  compari- 
son with  the  wrongs  of  the  Spanish  colonies  in  the 
South.  Captain  Basil  Hall  wrote  in  his  journal  in 
1823,  "  The  whole  purpose  for  which  the  South  Amer- 
icans existed  was  held  to  be  in  collecting  together 
precious  metals  for  the  Spaniards,  and  if  the  wild 
horses  and  cattle  could  have  been  trained  to  perform 
these  offices^  the  inhabitants  might  have  been  dispensed 


22  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

with  altogether,  and  then  the  colony  system  would 
have  been  perfect."  ^  The  conditions  which  have  be- 
come familiar  to  us  in  Cuba  and  the  Philippines  pre- 
vailed all  over  Central  and  South  America.  Spain 
and  Portugal  were  supreme,  and  while  there  was 
doubtless  a  great  deal  of  contentment  and  a  form  of 
civilization,  it  was  a  base  expression  of  wrong  social 
and  political  principles  immensely  degraded  by  the 
autocracy  of  the  Government  and  the  fanaticism  and 
domination  of  the  Church. 

Yet  it  was  not  alone  the  wrongs  from  which  they 
suffered  which  aroused  the  Latin  American  states  to 
revolution.  The  Spanish  colonies  felt  the  influence 
of  the  movement  towards  liberty  then  altering  the 
history  of  Europe  and  North  America.  Spain  kept 
them  as  ignorant  as  possible  of  what  was  going  on, 
but  both  they  and  Spain  felt  that  some  change  in  their 
relations  would  inevitably  follow.  Spain  recognized 
the  independence  of  the  United  States  in  1783.  How 
could  she  continue  to  deny  all  autonomy  to  her  own 
colonies  ?  The  Count  of  Aranda  suggested  to  Charles 
III,  "  the  reorganization  of  all  his  colonial  possessions 
in  America,  by  the  estabhshment  of  three  kingdoms, 
namely,  Mexico,  Peru  and  the  Spanish  Main,  includ- 
ing what  is  now  Venezuela  and  Colombia.  Over  these, 
members  of  the  Spanish  royal  family  were  to  be 
placed  as  kings;  and  the  Spanish  monarch  was  to  be 
supreme  with  the  title  of  emperor.  The  scheme  was 
rejected  as  too  chimerical."  ^  But  by  recognizing 
the  right  or  at  least  the  fact  of  American  independence 
in  the  North,  Spain  was  in  a  weakened  position  to 
deny  it  in  the  South. 

*  See   Bigelow,    "  The    Children    of   the   Nations,"   6ff. 
»  Brown,    "  Latin   America,"    127. 


THE  GREAT   PAST  23 

The  people  of  South  America  were  making  com- 
parisons for  themselves.  The  manifesto  already  quoted 
proceeds  with  the  statement : 

Neither  so  great  nor  so  repeated  were  the  hardships  which 
roused  the  provinces  of  Holland  when  they  took  up  arms  to 
free  themselves  from  the  yoke  of  Spain;  nor  those  of  Por- 
tugal to  effect  the  same  purpose.  Less  were  the  hardships 
which  placed  the  Swiss  under  the  direction  of  William  Tell 
and  in  open  opposition  to  the  German  Emperor;  less,  those 
which  determined  the  United  States  of  North  America  to 
resist  the  imposts  forced  upon  them  by  a  British  king;  less, 
in  short,  the  powerful  motives  which  have  urged  other  coun- 
tries, not  separated  by  nature  from  the  parent  state  to  cast 
off  an  iron  yoke  and  consult  their  own  felicity. 

Even  more  than  by  the  revolution  of  the  United 
States,  the  South  American  and  Mexican  patriots 
were  inspired  by  the  spirit  and  character  of  the  French 
Revolution.  Bolivar,  after  finishing  his  education  in 
Spain,  went  to  Paris  and  saw  there  the  closing  scenes 
of  the  Revolution.  Later,  he  returned  to  Paris  and 
lived  there  for  five  years.  Subsequently,  he  returned 
to  Venezuela  by  way  of  the  United  States.  But 
France  probably  influenced  him  more  than  America. 
Racially,  the  Latin  American  people  are  more  in  sym- 
pathy with  France,  while  temperamentally  their  whole 
movement  resembles  the  French  Revolution  far  more 
than  ours.  They  liked  the  emotions  and  principles 
of  it  better,  and  we  can  understand  the  struggle  for 
the  emancipation  of  South  America  more  readily,  if 
we  imagine  it  as  a  movement  of  Frenchmen  rather 
than  of  Americans. 

And  curiously  and  with  no  intention  of  his  own, 
the  man  who  made  independence  possible  for  the 
Spanish  colonies  was  Napoleon.  "  Probably  no  man 
exerted  a  greater  influence  in  promoting  the  develop- 


24  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

ment  of  liberty  and  of  free  institutions  on  this  con- 
tinent "  than  he.i  In  1808,  he  deposed  Ferdinand  VII, 
King  of  Spain,  and  put  his  brother  Joseph  on  the 
throne.  Spain  was  soon  torn  by  civil  war  and  the 
stringency  of  her  colonial  government  was  relaxed. 
The  government  at  home  was  disorganized,  and  the 
colonies  set  up  their  own  governments,  some  regard- 
ing them  as  tentative  only,  to  be  suspended  when  Fer- 
dinand should  be  reinstated;  others  rejoicing  at  the 
opportunity  which  they  afforded  of  securing  entire 
independence.  In  18 10,  the  first  declaration  of  in- 
dependence was  made.  The  first  step  was  taken  in 
Venezuela.  There  were  three  parties  there:  the  im- 
perialists, or  Bonapartists,  the  adherents  of  Ferdinand, 
and  the  liberators,  who  believed  in  independence.  On 
April  18,  18 10,  there  arrived  at  Caracas  the  commis- 
sioners who  announced  the  formation  of  a  regency  at 
Cadiz  and  called  upon  the  Venezuelans  to  be  loyal. 
Bolivar  expressed  the  feeling  of  the  liberators.  "  This 
power  which  fluctuates  in  such  a  manner  on  the  Penin- 
sula," he  said,  "  and  does  not  secure  itself,  invites 
us  to  establish  the  junta  of  Caracas  and  be  governed 
by  ourselves."  On  the  following  day,  the  junta  was 
proclaimed  as  an  independent  power.  "  It  voted  not 
to  recognize  the  regency  of  Cadiz  and  announced  that 
Venezuela,  in  virtue  of  its  natural  and  political  right, 
would  proceed  to  the  formation  of  a  government  of 
its  own."  2  As  Minister  Romero  said,  "  A  condition 
of  things  had  been  reached  which  made  independence 
a  necessity  that  could  not  be  suppressed,  postponed 
or  evaded."  In  this  same  year,  steps  towards  inde- 
pendence were  taken  on  May  25th  in  Buenos  Aires 

1  Ellinwood,  "  Questions  and  Phases  of  Foreign  Missions,"  197. 
'  Butterworth,  '*  South  America,"  42. 


THE   GREAT   PAST  25 

for  the  Argentine ;  on  July  20th,  in  Bogota  for  Colom- 
bia; on  September  i6th,  in  Mexico;  on  September 
i8th,  in  Santiago  for  Chile,  and  "  during  the  same 
month  of  September  in  most  of  the  other  colonies."  ^ 
In  some  cases,  these  declarations  were  put  forth  as 
expressive  of  no  disloyalty  to  Ferdinand,  but  were 
on  the  other  hand  distinctly  friendly  to  him  and  de- 
signed only  to  secure  from  him  on  his  return  to  power 
some  recognition  of  rights  denied  before.  And  al- 
though on  Ferdinand's  restoration  these  hopes  were 
disappointed,  the  declaration  of  the  council  at  Caracas 
on  April  19,  1810,  the  first  of  all  the  actual  steps 
towards  independence,  was  to  the  effect  that  the  gov- 
ernment then  to  be  formed  would  exercise  authority 
in  the  name  of  Ferdinand  VII,  pending  his  restoration 
to  the  throne.  Nothing  would  satisfy  Spain,  how- 
ever, but  the  re-establishment  of  her  complete  and  au- 
tocratic authority.  The  mediation  of  Great  Britain 
in  behalf  of  the  colonies  was  refused.  The  patriots 
in  1817  said: 

The  Spanish  ministers,  blinded  by  their  sanguinary  caprice, 
spurned  the  mediation  and  issued  rigorous  orders  to  all  their 
generals  to  push  the  war  and  to  inflict  heavier  punishments. 
On  every  side,  scaffolds  were  raised  and  recourse  was  had 
to  every  invention  for  spreading  consternation  and  dismay. 
...  In  the  town  of  Valle-Grande,  they  enjoyed  the  brutal 
pleasure  of  cutting  off  the  ears  of  the  inhabitants  and  sent 
off  baskets  filled  with  these  presents  to  their  headquarters. 
.  .  .  They  have  not  only  been  cruel  and  implacable  in  mur- 
dering, but  they  have  also  divested  themselves  of  all  morality 
and  public  decency,  by  whipping  old  religious  persons  in 
the  open  squares  and  also  women  bound  to  a  cannon,  causing 
them  previously  to  be  stripped  and  exposed  to  shame  and 
derision.  .  .  .  They  have  declared  that  the  laws  of  war  ob- 
served  among   civilized   nations    ought    not    to   be    practiced 

»  Romero,  "  Mexico  and  the  United  States,"  295. 


26  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

among  us;  and  their  General  Pezuela,  after  the  battle  of 
Ayouma,  in  order  to  avoid  any  compromise  or  understand- 
ing, had  the  arrogance  to  answer  General  Belgrano  that  with 
insurgents  it  was  impossible  to  enter  into  treaties.  Such  has 
been  the  conduct  of  Spaniards  towards  us  since  the  restora- 
tion of  Ferdinand  de  Bourbon  to  the  throne  of  his  ances- 
tors. We  then  believed  that  the  termination  of  so  many 
sufferings  and  disasters  had  arrived.  We  had  supposed  that 
a  king,  schooled  by  the  lessons  of  adversity,  would  not  be 
indifferent  to  the  desolation  of  his  people,  and  we  sent  out 
a  commissioner  to  him  in  order  to  acquaint  him  with  our 
situation.  We  could  not  for  a  moment  conceive  that  he 
would  fail  to  meet  our  wishes  as  a  benign  prince,  nor  could 
we  doubt  that  our  requests  would  interest  him  in  a  manner 
corresponding  to  that  gratitude  and  goodness  which  the  cour- 
tiers of  Spain  had  extolled  to  the  skies.  But  a  new  and 
unknown  species  of  ingratitude  was  reserved  for  America, 
surpassing  all  the  examples  found  in  the  histories  of  the 
greatest  tyrants. 

The  same  justification  of  their  course  was  advanced 
by  the  Venezuelan  patriots  in  their  declaration  of 
complete  independence  on  July  5,  181 1.  This  was  the 
first  formal  and  unqualified  assertion  of  independence. 
It  was  the  first  act  in  the  great  movement  which  de- 
livered northern  South  America  from  the  sovereignty 
of  Spain.  The  great  hero  of  the  movement  in  the 
north  was  Simon  Bolivar,  who  was  born  in  Caracas 
in  1783.  Bolivar  was  preceded,  however,  by  Fran- 
cisco Miranda,  who  was  born  in  1756  and  who 
dreamed  the  dream  of  independence  and  strove  to 
realize  it  before  its  time.  He  passed  on  his  vision  and 
his  spirit  to  Bolivar,  but  died  in  prison,  where  Bolivar 
and  some  fellow-patriots  had  placed  him.  It  was  un- 
der Bolivar's  leadership  that  the  independence  of 
Venezuela  was  declared  at  Caracas.  After  many  vi- 
cissitudes the  victory  of  Boyaca,  on  August  7,  1819, 
enabled  him  to  proclaim,  on  December  17,  1819,  the 


THE   GREAT   PAST  27 

Republic  of  Colombia,  consisting  of  Venezuela  and 
New  Granada,  the  latter  of  which  in  1858  became  the 
United  States  of  Colombia,  a  separate  republic,  re- 
verting thus  to  the  independence  secured  during  the 
disturbed  days  before  Venezuela  had  actually  obtained 
her  liberty.  On  June  24,  1821,  he  gained  the  decisive 
victory  of  Carabobo  which  ended  the  Spanish  power 
in  the  new  combined  republic,  and  the  same  year  he 
was  elected  its  president. 

In  the  south,  meanwhile,  a  similar  movement  was 
going  on.  Argentine  took  advantage  of  the  unsettled 
conditions  in  Spain  to  set  up  its  own  provisional  gov- 
ernment, and  on  January  31,  1813,  a  congress  as- 
sembled in  Buenos  Aires  and  elected  Posadas  dic- 
tator. On  July  9,  1816,  independence  was  formally 
declared.  Of  the  great  characters  who  won  freedom 
for  the  south,  San  Martin  stands  out  as  the  foremost. 
Having  taken  a  prominent  part  in  the  emancipation 
of  Buenos  Aires,  he  turned  his  attention  westward 
and  planned  for  the  deliverance  of  Chile  and  Peru. 
From  his  position  as  Governor  of  the  Province  of 
Cuzco  he  marched  over  the  Andes  into  Chile  and  at 
Maipo,  on  April  5,  1818,  fought  the  battle  against  the 
royalists  which  freed  Chile.  His  next  step  was  a 
naval  expedition.  Commanded  by  Lord  Cochrane,  a 
British  Admiral,  his  fleet  sailed  from  Valparaiso  and 
San  Martin  entered  Lima.  On  July  28,  1821,  Peru 
declared  her  independence. 

These  two  delivering  movements  met  at  Guayaquil 
in  1822,  when  Bolivar  and  San  Martin  came  together 
and  conferred  over  their  great  plan  to  deliver  the 
whole  of  South  America.  San  Martin  believed  that 
his  work  was  now  done;  that  Bolivar  could  accom- 
plish the  liberation  of  the  western  regions  better  alone, 


28  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

so  he  quietly  withdrew.  "  The  presence  of  a  for- 
tunate general  in  the  country  which  he  has  conquered 
is  detrimental  to  the  state,"  he  said.  "  I  have  achieved 
the  independence  of  Peru.  I  cease  to  be  a  public 
man."  Whereupon  he  crossed  the  Andes,  took  his 
daughter  with  him  to  Europe,  and  lived  there  in  pov- 
erty and  neglect. 

Midway  between  the  movement  of  independence  in 
the  north  and  the  movement  in  the  south,  was  the 
work  of  deliverance  done  by  Sucre  in  Ecuador  and 
Peru.  At  the  battle  of  Pichincha,  on  May  24,  1822, 
he  destroyed  the  Spanish  power  in  Ecuador,  the  new 
republic  joining  at  first  the  republic  of  Colombia.  On 
December  9,  1824,  with  Bolivar,  he  fought  the  great 
battle  of  Ayacucho  against  the  Spanish  viceroy  La 
Serna,  and  finally  destroyed  the  authority  of  Spain. 
The  provinces  of  Upper  Peru,  which  were  thus  freed 
and  which  had  theoretically  been  part  of  the  Argen- 
tine RepubHc  as  successor  to  the  vice-royalty  of 
Buenos  Aires,  were  now  organized  into  an  inde- 
pendent republic  under  the  name  of  Bolivia. 

The  course  of  the  struggle  in  the  smaller  states  of 
South  America  it  is  not  necessary  to  follow.  It  is 
necessary  to  speak  only  of  Brazil.^ 

There  the  course  of  affairs  was  peculiar  and  dis- 
tinct. Under  Dom  Pedro  I  it  was  already  an  inde- 
pendent country,  freed  from  European  domination. 
What  it  required  was  emancipation  not  from  Por- 
tugal but  from  monarchical  to  republican  government, 
and  this  transformation  came  peacefully.  The  rule 
of  Pedro  I  was  so  unsatisfactory  that  he  abdicated 

*  For  a  thorough  yet  succinct  account  of  the  establishment  of  inde- 
pendence in  Spanish  America,  see  "  Cambridge  Modern  History,"  Vol. 
X,  chap.  ix. 


THE  GREAT   PAST  29 

in  1831  in  favor  of  his  five-year-old  son,  who  issued 
from  a  regency  to  assume  power  in  1840.  Pedro  II 
was  a  remarkable  man  and  his  government  of  Brazil 
helped  to  prepare  it  for  freedom.  He  was  himself 
a  royalist,  but  he  freed  the  Brazilian  slaves  and  in 
doing  so  brought  on  his  own  downfall.  The  eco- 
nomic change  which  resulted  alienated  the  wealthy 
class.  Plantations  dependent  upon  slave  labor  became 
profitless.  Comtism  became  a  dominant  philosoph- 
ical and  political  influence.  The  army  was  in  the 
hands  of  the  anti-monarchists.  The  Emperor  bowed 
to  the  inevitable  and  withdrew  to  Europe  and  a  new 
life  stirred  through  the  nation  now  taking  its  place 
as  the  last  among  the  South  American  republics  among 
which  in  territory  and  population  it  is  first.^ 

V.  The  republics.  The  South  American  republics, 
as  we  have  seen,  have  a  radically  different  heredity 
from  the  United  States.  In  North  America  the  re- 
public grew  out  of  local  self-government  and  rested 
on  the  English  or  Teutonic  political  idea  of  strong 
nationahty,  which  not  only  did  not  sacrifice  self- 
government  but  depended  upon  it,  and  on  the  princi- 
ple of  representation  and  responsibility.  In  South 
America  the  republics  rested  on  the  Roman  political 
idea  of  "  a  conquering  people  holding  sway  over  a 
number  of  vanquished  peoples."  ^  The  Roman  idea 
was  by  no  means  necessarily  tyrannical.  It  opened 
citizenship  to  all  and  it  made  all  theoretically  equal 
before  the  law,  but  it  lacked  the  representative  prin- 
ciple. The  South  American  republics  have  the  char- 
acter which  was  inevitable  from  their  political  an- 
cestry. 

^ "  Cambridge   Modern  History,"   Vol.   X,  chap.   x. 
*  Fiskc,   "  The  Beginnings  of  New  England,"   24. 


30  SOUTH   AMERICAN   PROBLEMS 

Spanish-Americans  have  known  only  two  forms  of  gov- 
ernment, which  have  everywhere  and  always  coexisted, 
though  they  seem  inconsistent.  First,  there  is  an  executive — 
the  limits  of  his  power  ill-dejQned,  and  often  imposing  his 
will  by  force,  in  essence  arbitrary  and  personal,  and  feared 
rath&r  than  respected  by  the  people;  secondly,  the  Cabildos 
and  the  modern  deliberative  bodies.  Never  really  elective, 
these  have  nevertheless  performed  many  of  the  functions  of 
bodies  truly  representative ;  they  have  checked  the  arbitrary 
executives  and  furnished  a  basis  for  government  by  discus- 
sion. For  centuries  the  communities  looked  to  them  for  the 
conduct  of  ordinary  local  governmental  affairs,  and  they 
survived  all  the  storms  of  colonial  and  revolutionary  times. 
On  the  other  hand,  their  importance  in  the  Spanish  govern- 
mental scheme  has  been  a  most  potent  influence  in  pre- 
venting the  growth  of  local  representative  government  by 
elective  assemblies  and  officials.  Consequently,  in  national 
matters,  freely  elected  and  truly  representative  assembles  have 
been  hard  to  obtain.  Legislation  has  been  controlled  by  the 
functionaries,  and  there  has  been  no  general  and  continuous 
participation  in  governmental  affairs  by  the  body  of  the 
people.  Government  by  discussion  and  by  common-sense  of 
the  majority  is  difficult  to  establish  among  a  people  accus- 
tomed for  centuries  to  seeing  matters  in  the  hands  of  offi- 
cials whom  they  had  no  practical  means  of  holding  to  re- 
sponsibility. The  people  have  rarely  felt  that  the  executive 
was  their  own  officer. ^ 

The  South  American  republics  deserve  great  credit 
for  their  increasing  political  vitality  and  their  growth 
in  democratic  spirit,  in  view  of  their  political  inheri- 
tance. They  sprang  out  of  and  carried  forward  with 
them  the  spirit  and  ideals  of  Spanish  dominion,  and 
as  the  "  Cambridge  Modern  History  "  says, 

There  is  something  medieval  in  the  Spanish  dominion  down 
to  its  close;  the  Middle  Ages  supply  the  best  parallel  to  its 
apparent  inconsistencies — high  ideals  and  shameful  vices,  ten- 
der humanity  and  shocking  ferocity,  thoughtful  provision  and 

*  Dawson,  "South  American   Republics,"   Vol.    I,    ssf. 


THE   GREAT   PAST  3I 

actual  neglect,  cult  of  formulas  and  indifference  to  facts, 
exaltation  of  ceremonial  faith  and  shameless  profligacy,  a 
theory  of  all-pervading  sovereignty  and  acquiescence  in  con- 
stant breaches  of  that  sovereignty.^ 

We  have  understood  too  little  the  intricate  character 
of  the  difficulties  which  the  South  American  republics 
have  had  to  overcome,  and  have  given  them  too  little 
of  the  help  and  sympathy  which  they  have  deserved. 
They  have  still  great  problems  to  deal  with,  entailed 
by  their  inheritance,  and  in  no  lands  of  the  world,  in 
consequence,  is  sound  popular  education  more  vitally 
necessary  to  the  well-being  and  progress  of  the  state. 
Only  three  of  the  ten  South  American  republics  are 
federal  unions  composed  of  sovereign  states  like  the 
United  States  or  the  states  of  Mexico.  These  three 
are  the  Argentine  Republic,  the  United  States  of 
Brazil,  and  the  United  States  of  Venezuela.  All  the 
other  republics  have  a  unitary  or  centralized  form  of 
government,  the  provincial  or  district  heads  being  ap- 
pointed by  the  President.  In  each  republic  is  the 
usual  division  into  executive,  legislative  and  judicial 
branches.  In  some  states,  as  Chile,  Venezuela  and 
Uruguay,  the  judges  of  the  Supreme  Court  are  elected 
by  the  national  congress.  In  others,  as  the  Argentine 
and  Colombia,  they  are  appointed  by  the  President 
of  the  republic.  In  some,  as  Uruguay,  the  President 
is  elected  by  Congress.  In  most  of  the  South  Ameri- 
can states  he  is  elected  by  electors  chosen  by  popular 
vote.  But  what  has  been  said  of  the  political  hered- 
ity of  the  South  American  institutions  will  suffice  to 
explain  the  fact  that  the  popular  vote  is  very  small. 
In  the  election  of  1908  only  18,000  votes  were  cast 
in  Buenos  Aires,  a  city  of  over  a  million  inhabitants. 

1  Vol.  X,  279. 


32  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

The  frequency  of  South  American  revolutions  has 
made  some  of  the  South  American  repubHcs  ridicu- 
lous in  the  eyes  of  the  world.  But  something  is  to  be 
said  in  their  defense.  First  is  the  character  of  their 
political  inheritance;  and  secondly,  the  lack  of  really 
representative  government,  the  limitations  of  the  fran- 
chise, the  ignorance  of  the  great  masses  of  the  peo- 
ple, and  the  farcical  character  of  elections  which  are 
always  controlled  by  the  party  in  power,  have  made 
revolutions  the  only  possible  way  of  securing  a  change 
of  administration.  A  revolution  is  indeed  a  sort  of 
popular  election.  And  there  is  something  noble  in  the 
loyalty  and  sacrifice  with  which  multitudes  of  poor 
people  who  knew  little  or  nothing  of  any  principles 
or  issues  which  were  at  stake,  have  fought  for  their 
leaders  and  followed  them  to  death.  But  it  was  Latin 
feudalism  rather  than  American  democracy. 

The  South  American  nations  are  intensely  devoted 
to  liberty.  Republican  institutions  with  them  face 
many  grave  problems,  but  they  do  not  face  the  prob- 
lem of  national  scepticism  as  to  republican  principles. 
These  states  are  republics  by  conviction  and  forever, 
and  it  is  essential,  therefore,  that  their  people  should 
become  such  citizens  as  can  alone  sustain  and  admin- 
ister free  institutions.  "  Our  needs,"  say  the  wisest 
and  most  patriotic  men  in  South  America,  "  are  char- 
acter and  intelligence.  The  discoverers  and  colonists 
bequeathed  us  boldness  and  cleverness,  but  their  blood 
runs  purely  in  the  veins  of  but  a  few  of  our  people, 
and  even  with  the  few  it  is  not  always  remembered 
that  courage  must  be  upright  and  that  cleverness 
must  be  thorough  and  true.  We  need  what  every  na- 
tion needs,  integrity  and  real  education." 


CHAPTER   II 

THE    SOUTH    AMERICAN    REPUBLICS 
OF  TO-DAY 

South  America,  both  in  its  physical  geography  and 
in  its  people,  presents  vivid  contrasts  with  our  own 
continent.  The  two  continents  do  not  vary  greatly  in 
size.  The  area  of  North  America  is  19,810,200  square 
kilometers  and  of  South  America,  17,813,950,  or  ac- 
cording to  the  figures  of  the  International  Bureau  of 
American  Republics,  now  the  Pan  American  Union, 
8,559,000  and  7,598,000  square  miles  respectively. 
But  the  two  continents  are  of  strikingly  different 
configuration  and  in  the  matter  of  river  systems  South 
America  is  more  richly  equipped  than  any  other  con- 
tinent. This  water  system  renders  the  development 
of  interior  South  America  far  simpler  than  the  devel- 
opment of  interior  Africa.  It  can  be  made  to  do  for 
these  republics  what  China's  water  system,  much  of 
it  artificial,  has  done  for  China. 

The  population  of  South  America  is  less  than  one- 
half  that  of  North  America.  We  have  110,000,000 
people  of  whom  90,000,000  are  white,  and  South 
America  has  between  40,000,000  and  50,000,000  of 
whom  less  than  15,000,000  are  pure  white  blood. 
South  America  is  more  thinly  settled,  with  its  popu- 
lation scattered  over  its  immense  area,  than  any  other 
part  of  the  world.  Its  population  has  probably  grown 
less  rapidly  in  the  last  century  than  that  of  any  other 
portion  of  the  world,  unless  it  is  Africa.    The  popula- 

33 


34  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

tion  per  square  kilometer  (in  1906)  of  some  of  the 
different  countries  will  show  the  opportunity  for  de- 
velopment in  South  America. 

Belgium   231  United   States    8.3 

Holland   158  Guatemala   14 

England   133  Honduras    5 

Italy    113  Mexico   6.8 

France    ']'>,  Costa  Rica  5.7 

Austria  70  Brazil   2 

Spain    37  Argentine    1.8 

Eastern  Russia  21  Colombia   3 

Japan    113  Venezuela    2.5 

China    yi  Chile    4.4 

India   81.6  Paraguay 2.6 

Siam    ID  Bolivia    2 

Korea   56  Peru   2 

Persia   5.4 

We  can  best  appreciate  the  greatness  of  these  South 
American  nations  by  comparing  them  with  our  own 
states.  Brazil  exceeds  the  whole  United  States  .in  size 
by  an  area  of  200,000  square  miles,  or  four  times  the 
state  of  New  York. 

In  Argentina,  located  in  the  South  Temperate  Zone,  with 
a  climate  like  that  of  the  United  States,  could  be  placed  all 
that  part  of  our  country  east  of  the  Mississippi  River  plus 
the  first  tier  of  states  west  of  it. 

Bolivia  is  comfortably  half  a  dozen  times  larger  than  the 
combined  areas  of  New  York,  New  Jersey,  Pennsylvania, 
and  Delaware. 

Into   Chile  could  be  put  four   Nebraskas. 

Peru  would  obscure,  if  placed  over  them  on  the  map,  Cali- 
fornia, Oregon,  Washington,  Nevada,  Arizona,  Utah  and 
Idaho. 

Paraguay  is  only  four  times  bigger  than  the  state  of  In- 
diana, while  little  Uruguay  could  wrap  within  its  limits  North 
Dakota. 

Texas  could  be  lost  twice  in  Venezuela  and  still  leave  room 
for  Kentucky  and  Tennessee. 


SOUTH   AMERICAN   REPUBLICS   OF  TO-DAY  35 

On  the  globe,  Ecuador  does  not  spread  like  a  giant,  but  it 
could  hold  all  New  England,  New  York  and  New  Jersey. 

Finally,  there  is  Colombia,  a  land  of  splendid  promise  and 
mighty  resources,  whose  nearest  port  is  only  950  miles  from 
the  nearest  port  of  the  United  States.  This  Republic  has  an 
area  as  great  as  that  of  Germany,  France,  Holland  and  Bel- 
gium combined.! 

It  is  customary  to  speak  with  unlimited  wonder  of 
the  wealth  and  resources  of  South  America.  It  is 
not  to  be  doubted  that  the  continent  has  immense 
riches  of  agricultural  product  and  mineral  treas- 
ure waiting  to  be  developed,  but  the  general  impres- 
sion produced  upon  the  observant  visitor  is  disap- 
pointing. There  are  deserts  more  barren  than  the 
worst  of  ours.  The  tropical  forests  and  vegetation 
are  coarse  and  oppressive.  The  rain  and  warmth 
produce  luxuriant  growths,  but  tender  things,  green 
grass  and  little  flowers  die  in  the  shadows  or  are 
scorched  in  the  heat.  The  table  lands  of  the  Andes 
above  the  timber  line  and  with  too  high  an  altitude 
for  corn  or  wheat,  the  rainless  stretches  of  arid  soil, 
the  sandy  wastes  even  in  the  tropics,  the  swamps  and 
miasmic  forests,  must  all  be  measured  when  we  talk 
of  the  agricultural  possibilities  of  South  America. 
The  great  broken  ranges  of  the  Andes  make  many  of 
the  mineral  resources  almost  inaccessible,  and  the  en- 
gineering problems  involved  in  railways  are  far  more 
difficult  than  with  us.  But  on  the  other  hand,  it  is 
certain  that  the  true  wealth  of  South  America  is 
hardly  reached  as  yet,  that  an  efficient  population 
would  develop  in  these  countries  an  almost  unHmited 
prosperity.  And  there  are  parts  of  South  America, 
notably  in  Brazil  and  Colombia,  and  in  the  wonderful 

^  Barrett,  "  Latin  America,  The  Land  of  Opportunity,"  28. 


36  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

Argentina,  which  cannot  be  surpassed  anywhere  in  the 
world. 

I.  Argentina.  It  is  impossible  to  group  all  the 
South  American  republics  in  common  commercial  gen- 
eralizations. Argentina  is  in  a  class  by  itself.  At  the 
present  time  it  is  far  and  away  the  most  progressive 
and  energetic  of  the  South  American  countries.  It 
is  the  least  South  American  of  them  all.  Of  its 
7,000,000  people  a  large  proportion  are  foreigners  or 
children  of  foreigners.  In  1895  the  total  number  of 
foreigners  was  886,395  of  whom  492,636  were  Ital- 
ians. In  1906,  252,536  immigrants  came,  of  whom 
127,578  were  Italians.  Buenos  Aires  with  a  popula- 
tion of  over  1,300,000  has  a  large  element  of  Itahans 
and  foreign  born  of  other  nations.  It  is  very  much 
like  a  European  city.  The  shops  are  like  foreign  shops 
and  the  air  of  the  place  is  modern  and  western.  Eng- 
lish financial  interests  have  been  heavily  concerned 
and  the  railroads  of  the  country,  not  a  little  of  the 
agricultural  industry,  and  a  considerable  part  of  the 
funds  for  municipal  improvements  have  been  pro- 
vided by  British  capital.  The  temperate  climate  is 
favorable  to  European  immigration  and  enterprise. 

Already  the  foreign  exports  of  the  Argentine  far 
exceed  the  exports  of  all  the  rest  of  South  America 
combined,  excepting  Brazil.  As  a  commercial  country 
it  rivals  Canada  and  outranks  Japan,  China,  Mexico, 
Australia  and  Spain.  The  country  is  still  thinly  set- 
tled, 6  to  the  square  mile  as  compared  with  30  in  the 
United  States  and  558  in  England,  and  its  agricultural 
resources  are  only  on  the  threshold  of  development. 
There  are  18,166  miles  of  railroad  as  compared  with 
13,270  in  Brazil,  with  new  lines  building  in  both  coun- 
tries. 


< 


SOUTH   AMERICAN    REPUBLICS    OF   TO-DAY  2>7 

The  producing  capacity  of  the  country  is  steadily  increas- 
ing, and  in  cereal  production  its  status  is  evidenced  by  the 
fact  that  as  a  corn  exporter  the  Argentine  Republic  took  first 
rank  in  1908,  occupying  the  place  formerly  held  by  the  United 
States,  In  the  production  of  this  foodstuff  the  country  ranks 
third,  and  as  a  wheat  grower  fifth.  It  is  first  as  an  exporter 
of  frozen  meat  and  second  as  a  shipper  of  wool. 

In  the  number  of  its  cattle  the  Republic  holds  third  place 
among  the  nations,  being  ranked  with  India  and  the  United 
States.  Russia  and  the  United  States  exceed  it  in  number 
of  horses,  and  Australia  alone  has  a  greater  number  of 
sheep. 

The  agricultural  area  under  cultivation  in  1908,  as  com- 
pared with  1895,  has  increased  216  per  cent,  A  large  portion 
of  this  increase  is  due  to  the  increase  in  the  cultivation  of 
wheat,  the  area  of  which  shows  an  increase  of  195  per  cent 
as  compared  with  1895. 

A  recent  agricultural  and  pastoral  census  of  the  Republic 
showed  live  stock  in  the  following  quantities:  cattle,  29,116,- 
625;  horses,  7,531,376;  mules,  465,037;  donkeys,  285,088;  sheep, 
67,211,754;  goats,  3,245,086;  and  hogs,  1,403,591;  representing 
a  total  valuation  of  $645,000,000, 

The  Republic  now  occupies  first  place  among  the  countries 
of  the  world  as  a  purveyor  of  frozen  meat,  though  the  indus- 
try is  as  yet  practically  in  its  infancy,  and  with  the  cheapest  and 
most  excellent  raw  material  in  the  world  at  hand  in  inex- 
haustible quantities,  it  will  undoubtedly  reach  proportions 
greatly  in  excess  of  the  present.  This  field  has  attracted  the 
attention  of  United  States  capitalists,  and  the  packing  inter- 
ests are  investing  large  sums  in  Argentine  establishments,^ 

Buenos  Aires  is  the  largest  city  in  South  Amer- 
ica, the  fourth  largest  in  the  Western  Hemisphere 
and  one  of  the  largest  in  the  world.  It  has  all  the 
problems  of  a  modern  American  city,  the  inevitable 
problems  of  industrial  unrest,  and  also  immorality, 
irreligion,  drunkenness,  ignorance,  with  difificulties  of 
its  own,  while  it  is  without  the  resources  of  an  Amer- 

*  "  The  Argentine  Republic,  1909,"  11,  15,  17,  18. 


38  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

ican  city,  the  national  traditions  and  spirit  and  the 
help  of  a  free  Church  and  adequate  schools.  Even 
the  Roman  Catholic  Church  is  doing  little  to  cope 
with  the  problems.  In  this  city,  the  size  of  Philadel- 
phia, there  are  only  forty  Roman  Catholic  churches 
and  ten  Protestant  churches  for  both  Spanish  and 
English  services.  In  Philadelphia  I  believe  there  are 
ninety  Roman  Catholic  churches  and  690  Protestant 
churches. 

Argentina  is  growing  more  rapidly  than  any  other 
South  American  country.  Its  population  has  ad- 
vanced from  1,830,214  in  1869  to  3,851,542  in  1895 
to  5,484,647  in  1905.  The  city  of  Buenos  Aires,  which 
in  1833,  when  Darwin  was  there  with  the  "  Beagle," 
numbered  60,000,  had  in  1869,  187,346  population,  in 
1895,  663,854,  and  has  now  over  a  million  and  a 
quarter  and  is  growing  at  the  rate  of  100,000  a  year. 
The  people  who  are  crowding  in  from  Europe  are 
not  bringing  their  religion  with  them.  Even  if  it 
were  an  adequate  religion,  demonstrated  by  its  fruits 
in  Italy  and  Spain  to  be  good  for  national  progress 
and  individual  morality,  the  immigrants  do  not  retain 
it  on  the  soil  of  the  new  land.  They  discover  here, 
as  a  priest  told  us,  that  the  priests  can  no  longer  wield 
over  them  the  power  of  the  State,  and  they  at  once 
hurl  off  the  eld  respect  for  the  Church  and  reject 
its  priesthood  whom  they  had  respected  only  because 
they  feared.  A  great  new  nation  is  taking  form  here. 
What  form  is  it  to  take?  Are  the  deepest  of  all  prin- 
ciples, the  elements  that  redeem,  to  be  omitted  from 
the  forces  at  work  upon  it?  Here  is  a  population  a 
little  greater  than  that  of  the  state  of  Illinois  scat- 
tered over  an  area  of  1,135,840  square  miles,  one-third 
the  area  of  the  whole  United  States.    One-fifth  of  it 


SOUTH   AMERICAN   REPUBLICS   OF   TO-DAY  39 

is  concentrated  in  one  city  larger  than  Boston,  Bal- 
timore and  Denver  combined. 

2.  Brazil.  Larger  in  size  and  population  than  Ar- 
gentina, Brazil  comes  after  it  in  energy  and  trade. 
It  is  the  largest  and  most  populous  of  all  the  South 
American  republics,  and  it  is  separated,  also,  from  the 
rest  by  distinct  racial  and  linguistic  peculiarities. 

Its  area  is  officially  given  as  3,218,130  square  miles. 
This  is  one-half  of  South  America  and  one-fifth  of 
the  combined  area  of  North  and  South  America. 
Brazil  is  larger  than  the  whole  of  Europe  or  than 
Australia  plus  Germany.  It  is  the  fourth  largest 
country  in  the  world.  The  country  has  forty-two  sea- 
ports, the  greatest  river  system  in  the  world,  almost 
every  variety  of  natural  product  except  some  of  the 
temperate  fruits  and  grains,  and  it  has  resources  of 
its  own  to  take  the  place  of  these.  It  is  so  immense 
that  it  does  not  know  its  own  area  or  condition.  Less 
is  known  of  its  interior  than  is  known  of  Africa. 

Brazil  represents  not  only  half  the  area  and  re- 
sources, but  also  between  one-half  and  one-third  of 
the  present  population  of  South  America.  The  cen- 
sus of  1890  gave  the  population  as  14,333,915.  The 
best  recent  books  give  it  as  15,000,000,  which  is  doubt- 
less an  underestimate.  There  are,  as  yet,  no  reli- 
able census  statistics.  The  greatest  diversity  of  opin- 
ion prevails  in  Brazil  as  to  the  growth  and  movement 
of  population.  The  country  as  a  whole  can  support, 
however,  ten  or  twenty  times  the  present  number  of 
inhabitants. 

The  character  of  Brazil  distinguishes  it  also  from 
the  rest  of  South  America.  It  remained  a  monarchy 
eighty  years  longer  than  the  other  countries.  It  re- 
tained slavery  twenty  years  longer  than  the  United 


40  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

States.  Its  language  and  predominant  racial  traits 
are  Portuguese,  while  all  the  rest  of  South  America 
is  Spanish.  It  has  the  largest  negro  element  of  any 
of  the  South  American  states.  Of  the  15,000,000 
population  in  1890,  approximately  one-third  were 
white,  one-fourth  negro,  one-half  of  mixed  blood, 
Indian,  negro  and  white,  and  the  remainder  Indians. 
Some  say  the  uncivilized  Indians  do  not  exceed  100,- 
000.  Hale,  in  "  The  South  Americans,"  gives  the 
num.ber  of  Indians  as  400,000  and  Martin,  in 
"  Through  Five  Republics,"  gives  their  number  as 
1,300,000.  The  whites  are  Portuguese,  Spanish,  Ital- 
ian, German  and  English  and  their  descendants  of 
mixed  blood.  The  immigration  has  been  largely  to 
the  southern  states  of  Sao  Paulo,  Parana,  Santa 
Catharina  and  Rio  Grande  do  Sul. 

Immigration  into  Brazil  attained  its  maximum  in 
1891,  when  it  reached  a  total  of  216,760.  In  1895  ii 
was  167,618.     Since  then  it  has  been  steadily  falling. 

Italy  furnishes  the  greatest  number  of  immigrants  and  Por- 
tugal comes  next.  From  1885  to  1905  inclusive  the  Italian 
immigrants  more  than  doubled  the  Portuguese,  that  is  to  say, 
1,068,032  Italians,  against  356,979  Portuguese. 

German  immigration  is,  as  shown  by  the  tables,  of  much 
less  importance ;  from  1893  it  only  amounted  to  a  few  hun- 
dreds yearly;  in  fact,  the  number  of  German  immigrants 
entered  between  1885  and  1903  did  not  exceed  79,796,  or  only 
about  one-third  of  the  Spanish  immigration. 

The  total  immigration  during  the  period  of  1855-190S  was 
2,374,005.1 

The  German  element  numbers  less  than  half  a  mil- 
lion. Immigration  has  affected  the  Argentine  even 
more  than  Brazil,  and  there  is  a  negro  strain  on  the 

^The  Times,  London,  South  American  Supplement,  August  30,  1910,  3. 


SOUTH   AMERICAN   REPUBLICS   OF   TO-DAY  4I 

coast  of  Venezuela,  but  with  these  exceptions  Brazil  is 
distinguished  from  the  rest  of  South  America  by  its 
immigration  and  its  negro  blood.  Its  people  have 
lacked  the  fanaticism  characterizing  the  peoples  on  the 
west  coast,  and  until  the  advent  of  the  host  of  for- 
eign priests  who  have  poured  in  since  the  Spanish 
withdrawal  from  the  Philippines  and  the  disestablish- 
ment of  the  Church  in  France,  the  Protestant  mission- 
aries found  an  open  and  much  neglected  field. 

The  total  imports  of  Brazil  in  1910  were  $235,574,- 
837,  and  the  total  exports  $310,006,438.  The  imports 
showed  an  increase  over  1909  of  nearly  $56,000,000, 
and  over  1908  of  $62,000,000.  The  impression  that 
German  trade  is  displacing  British  trade  is  not  con- 
firmed in  the  experience  of  Brazil  this  past  year,  dur- 
ing which  British  imports  increased  from  $48,241,287 
to  $67,061,065,  and  German  imports  from  $28,007,001 
to  $37,455,530.  Brazilian  exports  to  Great  Britain 
during  the  same  year  increased  from  $49,832,180  to 
$73,440,577,  while  Brazilian  exports  to  Germany  de- 
creased from  $48,130,450  to  $36,285,755.  The  total 
exports  of  Brazil  in  1910  were  only  about  $2,000,000 
more  than  in  1909,  but  nearly  $95,000,000  more  than 
in  1908.  The  United  States  is  Brazil's  best  customer, 
taking  in  1910  $112,184,068  of  Brazil's  exports,  while 
we  ranked  third  with  $30,253,918  of  imports.  It  is 
chiefly  coffee  and  rubber  that  we  buy.  In  1910  we 
took  $58,808,467  worth  of  coffee,  or  more  than  one- 
half  of  Brazil's  total  coffee  export,  while  we  took 
$47,409,030  worth  of  rubber,  Great  Britain  taking 
$57,926,160.  Rubber  and  coffee  together  made  up 
$251,613,589  of  Brazil's  total  exports.  Next  came 
the  mate  or  Paraguay  tea  to  the  value  of  $9,575,550- 
and  then  hides  $8,626,966,   and  tobacco  $8,048,925. 


42  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

Brazil  produces  at  least  four-fifths  of  the  world's  sup- 
ply of  coffee  and  about  one-half  the  rubber. 

As  regards  industrial  establishments,  a  fair  estimate  places 
them  at  3,400  at  the  close  of  1910.  The  total  number  of  em- 
ployees is  given  as  160,000,  the  capitalization  at  about  $220,- 
000,000,  with  a  production  of  $240,000,000.  Fully  sixty  per 
cent  of  this  capital  is  invested  in  factories  located  in  the 
Federal  District,  and  in  the  States  of  Rio  de  Janeiro,  Sao 
Paulo  and  Rio  Grande  do  Sul.  Pernambuco  has  extensive 
sugar  industries  and  cotton  mills,  and  smaller  manufacturing 
plants  are  scattered  in  various  parts  of  the  Republic. i' 

But  all  such  enterprises  are  still  in  their  infancy  in 
Brazil.  The  total  capitalization  of  all  its  industrial 
establishments  is  only  equal  to  the  amount  of  the  com- 
mon stock  of  the  Union  Pacific  Railroad  or  to  one- 
fourth  of  the  capitalization  of  the  United  States  Steel 
Corporation.  The  Brazilian  people  are  singularly 
friendly  and  amiable  and  they  have  done  more  by 
themselves  to  develop  their  country  than  any  other 
South  American  people.^ 

3.  Chile.  The  republic  ranking  third  in  enterprise 
and  progressiveness,  perhaps  in  proportion  to  its  size 
surpassing  most  parts  of  Brazil  in  these  regards,  is 
Chile. 

On  passing  from  Brazil  to  Chile  one  is  impressed 
at  once  with  the  contrast  which  the  two  countries  and 
peoples  present.  One  lies  almost  wholly  within  the 
tropics;  the  other  almost  wholly  in  the  temperate 
zone.  One  is  as  wide  as  it  is  long,  and  the  other  is 
a  thin  strip  one  hundred  ip.iles  or  so  broad,  stretched 

*"  Bulletin,    Pan    American    Union,"    July,    191 1,     73. 

^  Dr.  Gammon,  who  has  long  lived  among  the  Brazilians  and  who 
loves  them  and  is  loved  by  them,  has  drawn  a  sympathetic  but  dis- 
criminating picture  of  the  Brazilian  character  in  "  The  Evangelical  In- 
vasion  of    Brazil,"    41-48. 


m 


m 


SOUTH   AMERICAN   REPUBLICS   OF  TO-DAY  43 

along  the  coast  for  2,500  miles.  The  area  of  Brazil 
in  round  numbers  is  3,220,000  square  miles,  and  of 
Chile  300,000,  about  one-eleventh  the  size  of  Brazil. 
The  wealth  of  Brazil  is  agricultural,  while  of  the  750,- 
000  square  kilometers  of  Chile,  only  20,000  are  cul- 
tivated lands,  100,000  are  semi-arid,  200,000  forest, 
and  430,000  sterile.  Yet  Chile's  wealth  is  in  these 
sterile  lands,  embracing  fifty-seven  per  cent  of  the 
territory,  for  there  are  the  great  nitrate  beds,  and  the 
varied  mineral  veins.  In  Brazil  everything  is  spread 
out,  expansive;  in  Chile,  drawn  in  and  compacted. 
Brazil  is  so  big  that  it  does  not  know  itself.  Distant 
provinces  are  like  small  independent  governments. 
Chile  is  highly  centralized,  with  all  its  activities  fo- 
cussed  in  the  capital  and  ordered  by  a  small  class  of 
men.  The  Brazilian  is  placid  and  tranquil ;  the  Chilean 
energetic  and  enduring.  ''  By  reason  or  by  force," 
is  the  motto  stamped  on  the  Chilean  coins.  "  Progress 
and  order  "  are  the  words  on  the  flag  of  Brazil.  In 
Brazil  the  population  is  a  composite  mixture  with  a 
large  immigration  and  a  strong  African  element.  In 
Chile  it  is  largely  homogeneous,  with  a  negligible  im- 
migration and  no  negro  element  whatever.  The  fun- 
damental problems  are  closely  akin  in  the  two  coun- 
tries, but  the  contrasts  serve  to  give  an  edge  to  the 
facts. 

Chile  is  made  up  climatically  of  at  least  three  coun- 
tries, (i)  There  is  the  southern  section,  reaching 
roughly  from  Cape  Horn  to  Valdivia,  a  land  of  forest 
and  rain  and  storm.  26.5  per  cent  of  Chile  is  forest 
land,  and  of  this  it  is  estimated  that  one-half  is  arable. 
In  this  southern  section  are  the  great  sheep  lands  of 
Patagonia,  Magallanes  and  Tierra  del  Fuego.  In  the 
province  of  Magallanes  or  Magellan,  there  is  an  area 


44  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

larger  than  the  state  of  New  York,  wind-swept  and 
fog-covered,  but  well  adapted  to  sheep  pasture. 
There  are  now  millions  of  sheep  here.  Elliott  says 
in  his  book  on  Chile  that  in  1905,  75,000  frozen  car- 
casses were  shipped  from  Punta  Arenas.  In  1908 
one  plant  just  east  of  Punta  Arenas  froze  and 
shipped  196,000  sheep.  (2)  The  real  Chile  lies  be- 
tween Valdivia  and  Santiago.  Four-fifths  of  the 
population  live  in  this  central  section.  It  is  the  cul- 
tivated section,  though  there  is  much  waste  land  even 
here.  In  the  provinces  of  this  section,  the  population 
varies  from  5  to  47  per  square  kilometer.  The  aver- 
age would  be  near  20.  It  is  full  of  cities  and  towns 
and  villages,  readily  accessible,  railroads  running  up 
and  down  and  to  and  fro  across  it,  and  all  parts  not 
reached  by  rail  are  possible  of  an  access  which  would 
be  deemed  very  easy  in  Bahia  or  Persia.  This  sec- 
tion is  one  long  valley,  with  subordinate  valleys,  cov- 
ering a  region  of  roughly  500  by  100  miles.  The 
southern  half  of  this  section,  from  Valdivia  to  Con- 
cepcion,  is  still  frontier.  The  remnants  of  the  Arau- 
canian  Indians,  the  one  race  whom  the  Spaniards 
could  not  conquer,  live  in  the  midst  of  this  southern 
half.  (3)  The  rest  of  Chile  is  the  dry  land  to  the 
north,  from  Santiago  and  Valparaiso,  latitude  33°  to 
Tacna,  at  the  northern  boundary,  at  18°.  At  Val- 
divia it  rains  172  days  a  year,  and  the  rainfall  is 
2841. 1  m.m.  At  Santiago  it  rains  31  days,  and  the 
rainfall  is  264  m.m.  At  Antofagasta  and  Iquique  it 
never  rains  at  all.  The  nitrate  and  borax  are  piled 
in  the  open  with  no  fear  even  of  a  shower,  and  the 
shops  display  no  umbrellas.  Here  in  the  north,  among 
the  nitrate  oficinas  and  at  the  copper  mines,  an  un- 
stable population  comes  and  goes,  with  more  money 


SOUTH   AMERICAN    REPUBLICS    OF   TO-DAY  45 

than  in  the  south,  and  with  the  freedom  of  opinion  of 
such  a  moving  company  detached  from  old  moorings. 

The  great  curse  of  Chile  is  alcoholism.  In  Santi- 
ago, a  city  with  a  population  of  332,724,  it  was  found 
recently,  when  the  municipality  took  up  the  matter, 
that  there  were  6,000  places  where  liquor  was  sold, 
and  in  Valparaiso,  we  were  told,  there  was  one  saloon 
to  every  twenty-four  men.  Mr.  Akers,  in  "  A  History 
of  South  America,  1854-1904,"  says  that  Valparaiso, 
with  a  population  of  140,000,  shows  600  more  cases 
of  drunkenness  reported  to  the  police  than  in  all  Lon- 
don, with  5,000,000  souls.  Drink  has  nearly  wiped 
out  the  Indians.  The  land  is  cursed  with  drink,  and 
foreigners  are  manufacturing  a  good  part  of  it. 

The  general  hygienic  conditions  also  are  appalling. 
Smallpox  is  practically  endemic  in  Valparaiso  and 
Santiago.  There  were  many  deaths  daily  while  we 
were  in  Santiago.  Smallpox  sufferers  would  be  seen 
on  the  streets  or  in  street  cars,  and  the  pest  house 
was  in  constant  use.  The  conventicles,  or  tenements, 
in  a  land  where  all  such  houses  are  only  one  story 
high  and  there  is  no  excuse  for  congestion,  are  sim- 
ply breeding  places  for  disease  and  killing  grounds 
for  little  children.  Open  sewers  run  down  the  uncov- 
ered gutters  before  the  long  rows  of  sunless  rooms. 
Seventy-five  or  eighty  per  cent  of  the  children  die 
under  two  years  of  age,  and  the  general  rate  of  mor- 
tality is  nearly  double  that  of  Europe.  Well-informed 
men  declare  that  the  population  is  stationary.  The 
census  reports,  which  show  a  population  in  1875  of 
^,075,991,  in  1885  of  2,527,300,  in  1895  of  2,712,145 
and  in  1907  of  3,249,279,  do  not  confirm  this  impres- 
sion of  stagnancy,  but  the  ablest  and  best-informed 
men  recognize  the  evil  of  the  national  suicide  through 


46  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

alcoholism  and  dirt,  the  uncleanness  of  the  houses  and 
the  murderous  ignorance  of  the  care  of  children. 
Property  under  $2,000  is  not  taxed,  and  on  property- 
above  that  the  maximum  tax  rate  is  three  per  mille, 
or  about  one- tenth  of  what  we  pay  in  many  commu- 
nities in  the  United  States.  There  is  none  of  that 
spirit  toward  public  interests  which  makes  their  tax 
bills  the  most  grateful  expenditure  of  many  Americans. 

Nevertheless  it  is  a  wonderful  little  republic,  pa- 
triotic to  the  last  fibre,  with  many  capable  and  public- 
spirited  men,  but  without  the  political  or  moral  spirit 
in  the  mass  of  the  nation  capable  of  sustaining  repre- 
sentative institutions  or  creating  a  progressive  state. 

These  three  republics  are  the  leading  South  Amer- 
ican nations.  It  is  /;heir  trade  and  activity  which  make 
up  almost  the  whole  commercial  life  of  the  continent. 

4.  Uruguay.  With  these  three  we  should  group 
Uruguay.  It  is  the  smallest  republic,  and  with  the 
exception  of  French  and  Dutch  Guiana,  the  smallest 
country  in  South  America,  and  yet  it  has  an  area  of 
72,000  miles  and  is  larger  than  England.  It  attained 
its  independence  in  1825.  It  has  a  population  of 
1,112,000,  1,472  miles  of  railroad  and  5,000  miles  of 
telegraph.  It  adjoins  the  southern  state  of  Brazil, 
Rio  Grande  do  Sul,  and  there  is  now  railroad  connec- 
tion of  Montevideo  with  Porto  Alegre,  one  of  the 
two  largest  cities  of  Rio  Grande  do  Sul  and  one  of 
its  sea  ports  which  is  now  connected  with  Sao  Paulo 
by  the  railway.  Montevideo,  the  capital  of  Uruguay, 
was  founded  in  1726,  and  has  now  a  population  of 
308,000,  only  a  little  less  than  Santiago,  Chile.  3,700 
ocean-going  ships,  of  which  1,700  are  British,  enter 
the  port  of  Montevideo  annually. 

Uruguay  has  had  its  political  irregularities,  but  the 


SOUTH   AMERICAN    REPUBLICS   OF   TO-DAY  47 

country  has  been  very  steady  in  comparison  with 
Paraguay,  and  it  enjoys  the  unique  distinction  of  hav- 
ing its  currency  on  a  gold  basis  with  a  dollar  worth 
102  American  cents.  The  country  has  neither  gold 
nor  copper  coin  of  its  own,  but  only  paper  money  and 
very  neat  i,  2,  3  and  5  cent  nickel  pieces.  Montevideo 
is  a  semi-Europeanized  town  with  ten  banks,  five  hos- 
pitals, trolley  cars,  a  good  park,  a  mediocre  cathedral 
and  comparatively  few  Roman  Catholic  Churches.  It 
has  a  good  air  of  thrift  and  substantial  prosperity 
and  through  it  passes  almost  all  of  Uruguay's  trade. 

The  Montevideo  type  was  very  interesting  to  us 
after  seeing  the  Brazilian.  There  was  no  negro  blood, 
and  while  the  policemen  and  soidiers  were  Indian  or 
Gaucho,  there  seemed  to  be  little  Indian  blood  in  the 
city  laborer.  The  stevedores  at  the  docks  might  have 
been,  as  far  as  appearance  went,  imported  from  New 
York.  The  faces  of  the  women  on  the  streets  and  in 
the  shops  were  as  white  as  in  Paris.  One-fifth  of  the 
population  in  Uruguay  are  foreigners.  In  1900  there 
were  73,288  Italian  and  57,865  Spaniards.  The  gen- 
eral type  is  like  a  mixture  of  Italian  and  Spanish. 

The  leading  products  of  the  country  are  agricul- 
tural and  pastoral,  the  former  including  wheat,  flour, 
corn,  linseed,  barley,  hay  and  tobacco,  and  the  latter 
representing  a  total  of  about  30,000,000  head  of  stock, 
embracing  approximately  7,000,000  cattle,  20,000,000 
sheep,  600,000  horses,  100,000  hogs  and  mules  and 
goats.  Of  the  great  estancias  or  grass  farms  devoted 
to  the  raising  of  live  stock,  the  Liebig  Company  owns 
seven  in  Uruguay  for  the  supply  of  its  beef-extract 
factory  at  Fray  Bentos. 

These  first  four  republics  include  two-thirds  of  the 
population,  but  they   carry  on  seven-eighths  of  the 


48  SOUTH    AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

trade  of  the  continent.  Practically  all  of  the  immi- 
gration to  South  America  has  been  to  these  four 
countries,  and  it  is  not  without  shame  that  we  note 
that  the  parts  of  South  America  farthest  from  the 
United  States  are  the  most  prosperous  parts.  Europe 
has  done  far  more  to  develop  South  American  trade 
and  resources  than  we  have  done,  and  the  best  life 
of  South  America  to-day  is  the  life  which  has  been 
most  touched  by  northern  European  influence. 

The  total  population  of  South  America  is  less  than 
50,000,000,  its  exports  about  $950,000,000  gold,  and 
its  imports  about  $820,000,000.  The  great  excess  of 
exports  over  imports  would  be  a  good  sign  but  for 
the  fact  that  a  great  deal  of  the  capital  engaged  in 
producing  the  exports  is  foreign  capital  and  that  the 
earnings  of  this  capital  go  out  of  the  country.  The 
same  thing  is  true  of  most  of  the  railway  earnings. 
If  it  were  not  for  Brazil  and  Argentina  and  Chile, 
these  immense  territories  would  show  a  commerce  less 
than  Denmark's  alone.  Brazil,  however,  with  almost 
the  same  population  as  Mexico,  though  it  must  be 
acknowledged  with  far  richer  resources,  has  a  com- 
merce over  four  times  as  much,  while  Argentina,  with 
only  half  of  Mexico's  population,  has  nearly  six  times 
her  commerce.  Even  poor  Persia  has  an  export  and 
import  trade  exceeding  that  of  Paraguay,  Ecuador 
and  Colombia.  There  are  great  resources  in  South 
America,  but  they  are  not  easily  developed.  The 
local  populations  are  not  competent  to  develop  them. 
Commercially,  the  continent  is  dependent  upon  energy 
and  capital  from  without.  When  these  are  intro- 
duced, however,  what  has  been  already  done  in  Argen- 
tina and  Brazil  shows  what  may  be  expected  in  the 
development  of   South  American  resources.     Brazil, 


SOUTH   AMERICAN    REPUBLICS   OF   TO-DAY  49 

with  a  population  of  20,000,000,  exports  more  than 
China,  with  a  population  of  more  than  400,000,000. 
Argentina,  with  a  population  of  7,000,000  has  exports 
and  imports  exceeding  by  $340,000,000  the  total  ex- 
ports and  imports  of  Japan,  with  a  population  seven 
times  that  of  the  Argentine.  The  exports  of  Brazil 
and  Argentina  combined,  with  a  population  of  27,000,- 
000,  exceed  by  $222,000,000  the  combined  exports  of 
Japan  and  China,  with  a  population  of  450,000,000, 
seventeen  times  the  combined  population  of  Brazil  and 
the  Argentine.  In  proportion  to  her  population,  Chile 
far  exceeds  in  her  foreign  trade  both  Japan  and  China. 
If  Japan  exported  as  much  in  proportion  to  her  popu- 
lation as  Chile  does,  Japan's  exports  would  amount, 
not  to  $228,000,000,  but  to  more  than  $1,600,000,000, 
while  China's  would  amount,  not  to  $220,000,000,  but 
to  more  than  $13,000,000,000.  From  such  facts  one 
may  gain  some  impression  of  the  undeveloped  trade 
of  the  Far  East,  especially  when  he  reminds  himself 
that  the  trade  of  South  America  is  only  beginning. 

Argentina,  Brazil,  Chile  and  Uruguay  may  be 
grouped,  then,  in  a  class  apart  from  the  other  repub- 
lics, which  as  yet  are  less  advanced.^ 

I.  Paraguay.  Paraguay  is  one  of  the  oldest  and 
yet  least  advanced  of  the  republics.  In  1796,  during 
the  days  of  Spanish  rule,  the  first  census  was  taken 
and  gave  a  population  of  97,480.  In  1857  the  official 
census,  which  Hke  most  South  American  census  re- 
ports was  very  unreliable,  gave  a  population  of  1,337,- 
439.  The  further  progress  of  the  population  was 
stopped  by  the  wars  of   1 865-1870,  when  Paraguay 

1  The  following  table,  based  upon  the  figures  in  the  Annual  Review 
for  1911  of  the  "Bulletin  of  the  Pan  American  Union,"  will  bring  out 
the  essential  facts  with  regard  to  the  conditions  of  these  countries  and 


50 


SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 


was  nearly  annihilated  in  her  struggles  under  the  in- 
famous Lopez  against  the  combined  forces  of  Brazil, 
Argentina  and  Uruguay.  When  the  wars  were  over, 
the  official  census  gave  231,079  inhabitants  for  the 
whole  country,  of  whom  only  28,746  were  men.  The 
female  population  has  always  been  in  excess  of  the 
male  in  Paraguay,  with  the  result  that  when  they  out- 
numbered the  men  four  to  one,  polygamy  and  immor- 
ality became  so  common  that  it  was  alleged  that  ninety- 
eight  per  cent  of  the  children  were  illegitimate  and 
the  "  women  were  forced  to  become  laborers  and 
bread-winners  for  the  community."  It  is  wonderful 
that  the  country  has  recovered  as  it  has  from  the 
paralyzing  rule  of  Lopez.  Cattle  products  and  ex- 
tracts furnish  the  larger  part  of  the  exports.  The 
principal  crop  is  mate  or  Paraguay  tea.     The  mate 


will    also    indicate    the    distinction    between    the    progressive    and    the 
backward   lands: 


Area 
Sq.  M. 

Popula- 
tion 

Imports 

Exports 

Total          ^•.,?- 
Foreign  Trade  ^^|- 

Argentina 

Brazil 

ChUe 

Uruguay 

1,139,979 

3,218,130 

291,500 

72,210 

6,989,023 

20,515,000 

3,500,000 

1,112,000 

$341,217,536 
235,574,837 
108,582,279 
42,796,706 

$361,447,274 

310,006,438 

120,021,919 

43,333,124 

$702,664,810 
545,581,275 
228,604,198 
86,129,830 

18,166 
13,279 

3,573 
1,472 

Total 

4,721,819 

32,116,023 

$728,171,358 

$834,808,755 

$1,562,980,113 

36,490 

IS!!':::;; 

Peru 

Ecuador 

Colombia 

Venezuela 

Panama 

171,815 
708,195 

679,600 
116,000 
438.436 
393,976 
32,380 

800,000 
2,267,935 

4,500,000 
1,500,000 
4,320,000 
2,685,606 
419,029 

$5,374,837 
18,135,000 

(Est.) 
22,508,021 

8,024,105 
17,025,637 
12,387,551 
10,056,993 

$4,419,497 
29,080,957 

31,144,250 
13,666,371 
17,625,152 
17,948,571 
1,769,330 

$9,794,334 

UT" 

53,652,271 
21,690,476 
34,650,789 
30,336,122 
11,826,323 

232 
635 

1,656 
350 
614 
543 
202 

Total 

2,540,402 

16,492,570 

$93,512,144 

$115,654,128 

$209,166,272 

4,231 

Total   for   So. 
America  (ii 
republics)  .. 

7,262,221 

48,608,593 

$821,683,502 

$950,462,883 

$1,772,146,385 

40,371 

SOUTH   AMERICAN   REPUBLICS   OF   TO-DAY  5 1 

tree  looks  not  unlike  our  orange  tree  crossed  with  a 
poplar.  The  leaf  and  twigs  are  dried  and  used  for  a 
beverage  by  steeping  them  in  a  bowl  or  gourd  and 
sucking  the  drink  through  a  bombilla  or  pipe  with 
one  end  consisting  of  a  perforated  bulb  through  which 
the  tea  is  strained.  About  17,600,000  pounds  are 
raised  annually  in  Paraguay  and  a  large  crop  is  pro- 
duced in  southern  Brazil.  Mate  is  one  of  the  favorite 
beverages  of  the  southern  section  of  the  continent, 
ranking  with  wine  and  heavier  alcoholic  drinks  and 
in  many  sections  displacing  coffee.  6,000,000  pounds 
of  tobacco  are  produced  annually  and  the  soil  is  ex- 
cellent for  cotton.  There  is  an  insignificant  immi- 
gration. Less  than  three  per  cent  of  the  population 
is  foreign. 

2.  Bolivia.  The  traveler  reaches  Bolivia  now  either 
from  Mollendo  in  Peru  by  rail  to  Lake  Titicaca, 
thence  by  boat  to  Guaqui  or  by  rail  from  Antofagas- 
ta  in  Chile.  Bolivia  and  Paraguay  are  the  only  re- 
publics in  South  America  with  no  sea  coast,  Bolivia 
having  been  deprived  of  her  seaboard  provinces  by 
Chile  in  the  war  of  1879-1883.  We  entered  from  An- 
tofagasta,  a  city  of  32,000,  where  it  never  rains,  the 
gray  overhanging  clouds  having  no  meaning,  where 
the  sand  and  dust  are  inches  deep  in  the  back  streets 
and  would  be  in  the  main  streets  were  the  loose  dirt 
not  constantly  removed,  where  the  surf  is  always 
breaking  over  the  reef  which  half  protects  the  landing 
stage,  and  the  brown  hills  utterly  barren  are  ever  lis- 
tening in  their  dead  stillness.  Absolutely  no  food  is 
produced  here.  The  town  imports  everything  and  ex- 
ports in  return  nitrates  and  borax  and  silver  from 
the  rich  mines  in  the  interior. 

Oruro  is  574  miles  from  Antofagasta  and  12,000 


52  SOUTH    AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

feet  above  the  sea,  and  from  Oruro  it  is  a  nine  hours' 
ride  of  150  miles  on  the  BoHvian  Railway  to  La  Paz. 
Most  of  the  way  the  snow-covered  Bolivian  Andes, 
which  run  up  to  25,248  feet,  are  in  view,  and  Illimani, 
24,635  feet  high,  stands  over  La  Paz  buried  deep  in 
the  unsuspected  valley  in  the  great  plateau  where  the 
Spaniards  built  it  in  1548  and  named  it  "  Peace,"  on 
the  first  anniversary  of  the  battle  of  Huarina.  The 
lovely  sight  of  the  city  1,500  feet  down  from  the  edge 
of  the  plateau,  surrounded  by  terraced  fields,  with 
red-tiled  roofs  only  a  little  marred  as  yet  by  the 
hideous  corrugated  iron  which  is  an  industrial  boon 
and  an  artistic  curse,  is  an  abiding  memory. 

Railroads  now  connect  La  Paz  with  Chile  and  Peru 
and  the  sea  coast.  Even  now,  however,  she  keeps 
much  of  the  archaic  and  remote  and  seems  more  like 
a  story-book  city  than  a  real  one.  Only  Bogota  and 
Cartagena  seem  as  distant  from  the  real  life  of  the 
world. 

La  Paz  is  a  city  of  70,000  population.  The  "  Geo- 
grafia  de  la  Republica  de  Bolivia  "  issued  by  the  Gov- 
ernment for  use  in  public  schools  gives  the  population 
of  the  country,  according  to  the  census  of  1905,  as 
1,737,143,  of  whom  only  7,425  are  foreigners.  Chile 
has  few  foreigners  compared  with  Argentina  and 
Brazil,  but  there  are  134,524  in  Chile  out  of  a  popula- 
tion less  than  double  Bolivia's.  And  of  the  foreigners 
in  Bolivia  only  1,441  are  European.  The  census  gives 
564,009  people  as  engaged  in  agriculture  and  399,037 
in  general  industries.  The  significant  fact,  however, 
is  the  sharply  divided  racial  character  of  the  popula- 
tion. The  census  states  that  903,126  are  indigenous 
or  Indians,  485,293  mestizos  or  mixed  Indian  and 
white  blood,  and  231,088  white.     It  is  this  white  ele- 


SOUTH   AMERICAN    REPUBLICS   OF   TO-DAY  53 

ment  that  governs  the  country.  The  Indian  is  little 
better  than  a  serf. 

The  most  important  item  of  export  is  tin.  Once  it 
was  silver.  For  a  long  time  Bolivia  stood  third  among 
the  silver-producing  countries  of  the  world,  the  an- 
nual output  of  its  mines  being  estimated  at  10,000,000 
ounces.  The  Potosi  mines  from  1566  to  1615  yielded 
the  Spanish  Crown  in  taxes  alone  3,240,000,000  bolivi- 
anos, and  this  was  but  a  twenty-per-cent  tax,  so  that 
the  value  of  the  output  of  these  mines  during  fifty 
years  must  have  been  over  16,000,000,000  bolivianos.^ 
The  silver  export  now  is  about  $3,000,000  annually, 
and  the  tin  exports  are  $14,000,000.  Gold  also  was 
once  a  rich  production.  Agriculturally  the  land  is 
poor.  The  Andean  plateau  is  too  high  for  wheat  and 
large  sections  are  without  rain. 

3.  Peru.  The  "  Report  on  Trade  Conditions  in  Cen- 
tral America  and  on  the  West  Coast  of  South  Amer- 
ica," issued  by  the  Department  of  Commerce  and 
Labor  in  Washington,  contains  excellent  descriptions 
of  these  republics.    Of  Peru  it  says : 

In  size  Peru  is  the  fourth  among  South  American  Repub- 
lics, its  area  falling  slightly  below  that  of  Bolivia.  It  covers 
some  695,700  square  miles.  Of  the  4,610,000  enumerated  in 
the  estimated  population,  but  a  small  percentage  are  of  white 
blood — about  650,000.  The  remaining  eighty-six  per  cent  are 
negroes,  half-breeds,  Indians  and  Asiatics,  who  have,  as  a 
rule,  reached  but  a  low  degree  of  civilization,  and  have  little 
economic  importance  except  as  possible  laborers  in  the  de- 
veloping industries  of  the  country. 

The  country  is  one  of  the  few  in  South  America  which  lie 
wholly  within  the  tropics,  the  only  others  being  Ecuador, 
Colombia,  Venezuela  and  the  Guianas.  Its  most  northerly 
point  lies  almost  on  the  Equator  and  its  most  southerly  in 
about  latitude   19°   south.     The  climate,   however,  is  tropical 

*  "  Bolivia,"  edited  by  the  International  Bureau  of  the  American  Re- 
publics, 1904,  96, 


54  SOUTH    AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

only  in  a  portion  of  the  territory,  for  the  country  is  divided 
geographically  into  three  distinct  sections.  Along  the  coast 
is  a  narrow  belt  of  low-lying  lands,  ranging  in  elevation  from 
sea  level  to  3,000  or  4,000  feet.  Here  it  scarcely  ever  rains, 
the  climate  is  intensely  dry  and  hot,  and  vegetation  is  found 
only  in  the  valleys  of  the  few  rivers  which  break  through 
from  the  Andes.  A  second  section  may  be  described  as  the 
highland  or  plateau  region,  from  4,000  to  14,000  feet  above 
sea  level,  with  many  peaks  rising  to  18,000  or  20,000  or  more. 
The  climate  here  is  temperate  or  even  cold.  There  is  con- 
siderable rain  or  snowfall,  and  the  intense  barrenness  of  the 
unwatered  portions  of  the  coast  gives  place  to  a  natural 
growth  of  grass,  shrubs,  and  even  small  trees  in  the  more 
favored  sections.  Beyond  this  highland  region,  on  the  east- 
ern slopes  of  the  Andes,  lies  a  third,  the  low-lying  tropical 
river  valleys,  ranging  in  elevation  from  1,000  to  6,000  feet, 
with  abundant  rainfall  and  uniformly  hot  climate,  and  gen- 
erally densely  covered  with  an  immense  variety  of  tropical 
trees  and  other  vegetation. 

Until  recently  only  the  first  of  the  three  regions  above  de- 
scribed— the  low-lying  country  near  the  coast — and  a  few  sec- 
tions of  the  plateau  region,  have  played  any  important  part 
in  the  economic  development  of  the  country.  The  coast, 
where  irrigated,  has  yielded  various  important  tropical  prod- 
ucts, such  as  sugar,  cotton,  etc.,  and  the  mountains  have  pro- 
duced minerals,  chiefly  silver  and  copper.  Little  has  been 
possible  in  the  development  of  the  inaccessible  tropical  forest 
region  of  the  east.  Now,  however,  a  beginning  has  been 
made  even  there,  and  the  valuable  rubber,  hard  woods  and 
medicinal  vegetable  products  are  being  carried  to  the  outside 
world  by  steamers  which  ply  down  the  Amazon  from  Tquitos. 
An  idea  of  the  rapidity  of  this  development  is  given  by  the 
following  figures,  showing  the  exports  from  Iquitos  in  the 
past  few  years  (expressed  in  United  States  dollars)  :  1902, 
$1,405,000;  1903,  $2,137,000;  1904,  $3,306,000.  The  indications 
are  that  the  figures  for  1905  will  reach  over  $4,000,000.  The 
bulk  of  these  exports  is  rubber,  $3,209,000  in  1904.1- 

One  hears   the  most  diverse  judgments  upon  the 
character  and  condition  of  the  various  South  Ameri- 

1 "  Bolivia,"  edited  by  the  International  Bureau  of  the  American 
Republics,   1904,   41,  42, 


SOUTH   AMERICAN    REPUBLICS   OF   TO-DAY  55 

can  countries.  Men  of  equal  opportunities  of  ob- 
servation and  of  equally  long  experience  will  directly 
contradict  each  other.  Some  told  us  that  Peru  was 
the  worst  and  the  weakest  of  all  the  South  American 
governments,  except  Colombia,  and  others  that  the 
country  had  made  great  advance  and  was  encourag- 
ingly open  to  progress.  Our  own  impression,  in  com- 
paring Bolivia,  Peru  and  Colombia  with  the  other 
South  American  countries  which  we  saw  was  that 
they  undoubtedly  brought  up  the  rear,  but  that  of  the 
three,  Bolivia  was  the  most  backward,  Colombia  next 
and  Peru  next.  The  Indians  in  Peru,  as  we  judged 
from  what  little  we  saw  and  the  much  more  that  we 
heard,  were  inferior  to  the  Indians  in  Bolivia  and 
worse  treated  both  by  people  and  government;  but  in 
business  and  trade,  in  educational  institutions,  for 
which  Peru  had  imported  a  number  of  American  di- 
rectors, in  governmental  administration  and  in  its  cur- 
rency, Peru  is  distinctly  in  advance.  We  could  not 
discover  that  there  was  much  difference  between  the 
two  countries  in  the  character  and  influence  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church  or  in  the  irreligiousness  of 
the  men  who  in  both  lands  either  ignore  or  only  nom- 
inally support  an  institution  in  which  they  do  not 
believe. 

4.  Eciuidor.  The  trade  report  just  quoted  says 
that 

Ecuador  and  Colombia  together  may  be  regarded  as  among 
the  most  backward  of  the  South  American  States.  Their  re- 
sources are  undeveloped,  their  surplus  products  for  export 
are  far  below  the  proportion  which  might  be  expected  from 
their  population,  and  their  imports  are  correspondingly  in- 
significant. Their  importance  in  the  commercial  world  lies 
rather  in  the  possibility  of  future  development  than  in  their 
present  status.    Ecuador,  with  an  area  of  ii6,ocx)  square  miles 


56  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

and  a  population  of  1,500,000  (12.9  per  square  mile),  exported 
but  $11,520,000  worth  of  goods  in  1904  ($7.68  per  capita)  and 
imported  to  the  value  of  only  $7,670,000  ($5.11  per  capita). ^ 

The  reasons  for  Ecuador's  backwardness  are  given 
as  the  unhealthfulness  of  the  port  of  Guayaquil,  noto- 
rious for  its  unsanitary  condition  as  a  pest  hole  of 
yellow  fever,  the  vexatious  government  regulations 
and  the  revolutionary  spirit.  Instead  of  improving 
the  conditions,  the  republic  absorbed  the  appropria- 
tions for  the  Guayaquil  and  Quito  and  Machala  water- 
works, the  parks  in  Quito,  and  public  roads  for  the 
payment  of  current  expenses  of  administration.  Trade 
conditions  have  improved  slightly  since  1904,  as  the 
table  on  page  50  indicates.  Cocoa  is  the  most  im- 
portant export.  6,400,000  pounds  were  shipped  in 
1908,  of  which  the  United  States  took  about  one-sixth. 
The  total  export  of  cocoa  in  1910  was  $7,896,057. 
$1,258,575  worth  of  Panama  hats  were  exported. 
40,000,000  pounds  of  rice  are  produced  annually,  but 
this  is  not  enough  to  meet  the  demands  of  the  home 
market. 

5.  Colombia.  Colombia  is  the  South  American  Per- 
sia without  Persia's  excuse.  It  is  a  rich  and  fertile 
country,  not  a  desert.  There  is  scarcely  anything  that 
it  cannot  produce  from  the  fruits  of  the  tropics  to 
the  grains  of  the  temperate  zones.  It  has  thousands 
of  square  miles  of  low-lying  forests  and  pastures, 
capable  of  raising  cattle  for  the  Central  American 
and  West  Indian  markets,  and  bananas  for  the 
United  States.  It  has  thousands  of  square  miles  of 
higher  valleys  and  mountain  plateaus,  thousands  of 
feet  high,  where  it  is  perpetual  spring  time.    No  coun- 

1 "  Bolivia,"    edited   by   the   International   Bureau   of   the   American 
Republics,  1904,  63. 


SOUTH   AMERICAN    REPUBLICS   OF   TO-DAY    57 

try  can  produce  better  coffee  and  cocoa.  It  has  the 
richest  emerald  mines  in  the  world.  Its  total  product 
of  gold  has  been  £127,800,000.  Asphalt,  rubber,  salt, 
coal,  iron,  and  all  that  is  necessary  for  the  industrial 
independence  of  the  country  and  for  a  large  export 
trade  are  found  in  abundance.  The  whole  country 
could  be  a  garden.  Great  river  systems  provide  means 
of  communication  and  highways  for  trade.  Steam- 
boats on  the  Magdalena  River  can  run  from  the  sea 
to  within  eighty  miles'  of  the  capital  and  there  are 
other  navigable  streams  tributary  to  the  Magdalena 
or  running  into  the  Orinoco,  the  Amazon,  the  Pacific 
Ocean  or  the  Caribbean  Sea. 

And  yet  this  rich  country  is  one  of  the  most  back- 
ward and  decrepit  nations  in  the  world.j  She  has  a 
few  little  railroads,  the  longest  of  them  only  ninety- 
three  miles,  and  all  of  these  were  built  and  many 
are  owned  by  foreigners.  She  has  only  three  or  four 
highways,  and  two  of  them,  the  most  important  of  all, 
from  Cambao  and  Honda  to  Facatativa,  are  falling 
into  ruin.  One  of  them,  the  road  from  Honda,  has 
already  fallen.  It  never  was  a  real  road,  but  simply 
a  mountain  trail,  paved  in  parts,  for  the  use  of.  sad- 
dle horses  and  pack  mules.  For  centuries  this  was 
the  only  road  to  the  capital  for  all  imports  and  for 
the  people  of  most  of  the  country.  It  was  probably 
a  better  road  a  century  ago  than  it  is  to-day,  when 
the  traveler  finds  it  only  a  series  of  rocky  inclines, 
the  stone  pavements  broken  up  and  the  road  for  the 
fifty-six  miles  of  its  length,  until  it  joins  the  Cambao 
road,  worse  even  than  any  road  in  Persia.  There  is 
an  automobile  road  built  by  Reyes  as  one  of  his  spec- 
tacular achievements  covering  over  his  private  loot- 
ing, running  eighty  miles  north  of  Bogota  over  the 


58  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

plain,  but  the  country  can  be  said  to  be  without  roads, 
more  without  them  than  Persia  or  Korea  were  ten 
years  ago. 

How  backward  Colombia  is  may  be  seen  by  a  com- 
parison with  Chile,  a  country  of  only  four-fifths  of 
Colombia's  population. 

The  following  table  will  illustrate  the  difference: 

Colombia  Chile 

Area 450,000  sq.  miles  307,620 

Population 4,320,000  3,500,000 

Railroads 614  miles  3,573 

Exports $17,625,152  $120,021,919 

Imports $17,025,637  $108,582,279 

The  comparison  might  be  extended  further  if  Co- 
lombia had  any  reliable  statistics. 

The  cause  of  Colombia's  special  backwardness  is 
not  the  character  of  the  great  mass  of  the  people. 
They  are  a  willing,  industrious,  cordial  people.  We 
met  no  people  in  South  America  more  hearty  and 
amiable.  One  never  asks  help  in  vain.  In  some  of  the 
South  American  lands  there  is  a  great  deal  of  the 
dourishness  of  the  Indian.  There  is  much  Indian 
blood  in  the  Colombian,  but  it  is  a  good-hearted, 
friendly  blood.  The  moral  conditions  are  the  same  as 
elsewhere  in  South  America.  The  control  of  mar- 
riage by  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  and  the  use  of 
this  control  by  the  priests  as  a  source  of  income  to  the 
Church  have  resulted,  as  the  priests  themselves  admit, 
in  a  failure  on  the  part  of  great  masses  of  the  popula- 
tion to  get  married.  Men  and  women  live  together 
with  no  marriage  ceremony.  Sometimes  the  relation- 
ship is  maintained,  but  the  very  nature  of  it  makes 
fidelity  too  rare.  In  spite  of  the  good  nature  of  the 
people  there  is  a  great  deal  of  want  and  suffering.  /  In 


SOUTH   AMERICAN   REPUBLICS   OF   TO-DAY  59 

some  sections  goitre  is  almost  universal,  and  there  is 
the  same  lack  of  medical  provision  which  is  found  in 
other  South  American  lands.  In  the  Bogota  Hospi- 
tal, crowded  so  full  with  its  1,000  patients  that  some 
of  them  were  laid  on  mattresses  on  the  floor,  we  were 
informed  that  the  death  rate  both  in  Bogota  and  in 
the  country  was  abnormally  high — how  high  the  doc- 
tors disagreed — and  that  in  Bogota  with  100,000  peo- 
ple there  were  180  doctors  and  570  in  the  whole  of 
Colombia,  or  one  to  each  6,000,  as  against  one  to  each 
600  in  the  United  States.  In  Colombia  also  we  saw 
more  poverty  and  suffering  than  anywhere  else  in 
South  America.  In  Honda  alone  one  afternoon  more 
beggars  came  to  us  as  we  sat  under  a  tree  in  front  of 
the  hotel  after  the  ride  down  from  Bogota,  than  we 
had  seen  in  all  the  rest  of  our  trip.  (Colombia  is  the 
South  American  land  most  praised  by  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church  for  its  fidelity.  The  Church  has  here 
a  unique  control  and  here  least  is  done  for  the  suffer- 
ing and  the  needy.  We  did  not  hear  of  an  institution 
of  any  kind  for  the  blind,  for  the  cripple,  for  the 
aged.  There  are  leper  asylums,  but  the  State  has 
founded  them.  The  women  of  Colombia  are  even 
more  burdened  than  those  of  other  countries.  We 
saw  women  with  pick  and  shovel  working  on  the 
highway.  The  porter  who  came  to  take  our  bags  to 
the  station  in  Bogota  was  a  woman.  You  may  see 
women  with  week-old  babies  folded  in  their  breasts, 
staggering  along  under  a  sack  of  coffee  weighing  150 
lbs.  or  a  load  of  merchandise.  The  butchers  in  the 
market  in  Bogota  were  women.  And  I  think  one  could 
find  no  sadder  faces  than  those  of  the  women  in  the 
Bogota  Hospital.  The  curse  of  any  land,  guilty  of  un- 
cleanness  and  untruth,  is  bound  to  fall  heaviest  on  its 


60  SOUTH    AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

best  hearts,  the  hearts  of  the  women.  But  Colombia 
is  not  behind  the  other  South  American  countries  be- 
cause the  people  are  more  immoral  or  more  unworthy. 
They  are  probably  of  about  the  same  morality  and 
they  are  certainly  more  industrious  and  more  kindly 
and  more  eager  than  many  of  the  others. 

The  cause  of  Colombia's  special  backwardness  is  two- 
fold. First,  is  the  character  of  the  governing  class. 
No  country  unless  it  has  been  Venezuela  or  Paraguay, 
has  been  more  cursed  by  politicians,  men  who  were 
concerned  only  to  hold  office,  to  have  hands  on  the 
reins  of  government,  but  who  did  not  use  office  for  any 
public  service  or  handle  the  reins  of  government  to 
guide  the  nation  into  better  things.  Bogota  is  full  of 
people  who  live  on  the  state  and  talk  politics  and  play 
at  life.  But  politics  to  them  means  holding  office  and 
drawing  salary  and  talking  of  the  nation  and  its 
honor.  It  does  not  mean  the  development  of  its  re- 
sources, the  improvement  of  its  communications,  the 
education  of  its  children,  the  progress  of  its  indus- 
tries. Each  other  South  American  country  has  had 
its  men  of  the  Bogota  stamp,  but  contact  with  the 
outside  world,  the  incoming  of  foreign  capital,  truer 
ideals  of  education,  have  crowded  these  men  aside  or 
checked  them  by  the  creation  of  another  class  who 
are  engaged  in  the  real  work  of  the  world,  in  produc- 
ing wealth  and  promoting  progress.  For  a  time  Co- 
lombia made  real  progress  and  there  seemed  to  be 
ground  for  hope  that  the  better  days  had  come,  but  the 
treason  of  Nunez  to  liberal  ideas,  as  the  people  regard 
it,  in  1886  was  the  end  of  the  time  of  advance,  and  the 
revival  under  Reyes  now  appears  to  have  been  only  a 
cover  for  his  more  mercenary  treachery. 

The  other  great  cause  of  the  special  backwardness 


SOUTH   AMERICAN    REPUBLICS    OF   TO-DAY  6l 

of  Colombia  is  the  dominance  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church,  which  holds  the  land  in  a  grasp  which  she 
has  been  obliged  to  relax  in  the  other  South  Ameri- 
can countries.  In  the  first  half  of  the  last  century  the 
State  asserted  for  itself  a  large  freedom.  It  took  over 
many  of  the  great  properties  which  the  Church  had  ac- 
quired by  its  political  character  and  put  them  to  public 
uses.  In  Bogota  the  postoffice,  some  of  the  govern- 
ment buildings,  the  public  printing  office,  the  medical 
school  and  the  hospital  are  all  old  convents.  In  1888 
the  Church  came  back  into  power  through  a  concordat 
with  the  State.  Since  Ecuador  threw  off  the  domina- 
tion of  the  Church  there  is  not  one  South  American 
country  where  the  influence  of  Rome  is  so  powerful 
as  in  Colombia.  The  archbishop  and  the  Papal  dele- 
gate in  Bogota  are  the  most  conspicuous  figures  after 
the  President.  The  Papal  delegate  is  the  head  of  the 
diplomatic  corps,  and  it  is  said  by  many  that  there  is 
nothing  which  the  Church  desires  that  it  cannot  do. 
The  Church  controls  education,  and  while  the  Consti- 
tution proclaims  religious  liberty,  the  Church  exer- 
cises its  authority  to  see  that  as  far  as  it  can  order 
matters  the  liberty  shall  not  be  exercised  by  the  peo- 
ple. The  mission  school  for  boys  in  Bogota  was 
nearly  wrecked  in  1909,  though  its  prospects  seemed 
brighter  than  for  some  years,  by  the  reissuance  of  a 
letter  by  the  archbishop,  first  sent  out  ten  years  ago, 
in  which  he  warned  the  people  against  the  heretics 
who  had  come  into  the  country,  naming  specifically 
the  Presbyterians,  and  after  setting  forth  the  iniquity 
and  deceit  of  tlieir  doctrines  declared: 

In  consequence  whereof  and  by  virtue  of  our  authority  we 
command  you  (the  curate)  to  communicate  and  explain  with 
diligence  the  following  points : 


62  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

I.  All  persons  incur  the  penalty  of  the  excommunion  "  latse 
sententiae "  exercised  only  by  the  Roman  Pontiff,  who  are 
apostates  from  the  Christian  faith,  and  each  and  every  here- 
tic, whatever  the  name  by  which  he  designates  his  faith,  or 
the  sect  to  which  he  belongs,  and  all  persons  who  believe,  har- 
bor or  favor  or  are  in  general  their  defenders,  as  also  schis- 
matics and  those  who  pertinaciously  separate  themselves  and 
deviate  from  obedience  to  the  Roman  Pontiff. 

3.  No  Catholic  may,  without  rendering  himself  liable  to 
mortal  sin,  and  without  incurring  the  other  penalties  imposed 
by  the  Church,  send  his  sons  or  daughters  or  dependents  to  or 
himself  attend  personally  any  of  the  institutions  or  schools 
founded  in  this  city  and  known  as  the  American  School  for 
Boys  as  well  as  that  for  Girls ;  nor  may  he  give  aid  or  favor 
to  the  aforesaid  educational  plants. 

5.  It  is  a  most  serious  offense  for  any  Catholic  to  co- 
operate in  or  attend  the  meetings  for  Protestant  worship, 
funerals,  etc.,  whether  within  or  without  the  Church  (Prot- 
estant). 

6.  Those  of  the  faithful  who  receive  or  have  in  their  pos- 
session leaflets,  tracts,  loose  sheets,  or  periodicals  such  as  the 
"  Evangelista  Colombian©,"  "  El  Progreso "  of  N.  Y.  City, 
Bibles  or  books  of  whatever  other  kind,  whether  printed 
within  or  without  the  Republic  (Colombian),  which  are  sold 
or  distributed  by  the  Protestant  missionaries  or  by  their 
agents  or  by  other  booksellers,  are  absolutely  obliged  to  de- 
liver such  books  to  their  parish  priest  or  to  surrender  them 
to  the   ecclesiastical  tribunal  of  the  Archbishopric. 

This  circular  shall  be  read  in  all  churches  during  mass  for 
three  consecutive  Sundays  for  the  full  understanding  of  the 
faithful. 

(Signed)  BERNARDO, 

Archbishop  of  Bogota. 

Read  and  explain  this  circular  to  the  people  at  such  times 
as  there  may  be  present  the  greatest  number  of  persons,  and 
as  many  times  as  may  be  necessary  for  all  the  faithful  to  ap- 
appreciate  its  content. 

By  order  of  the  prelate, 

CARLOS   CORTEZ  LEE,    Sec'y. 


SOUTH   AMERICAN   REPUBLICS   OF   TO-DAY  63 

The  Roman  Church  in  Colombia  has  been  a  reac- 
tionary and  obscurantist  influence  for  centuries.  At 
Cartagena,  the  best  port  of  Colombia  and  the  most 
picturesque  city  we  saw,  was  the  seat  of  the  Inquisi- 
tion where  it  is  said  400,000  were  condemned  to  death, 
and  while  that  terror  has  long  since  passed  away,  the 
shadow  of  the  Church  as  a  great  repressive,  deaden- 
ing power  has  remained.  The  people  have  not  been 
taught.  Peonage  has  endured  and  in  a  modified  form 
been  sanctioned  by  law.  The  machinery  of  the 
Church,  it  is  charged,  has  been  used  in  the  interest  of 
personal  and  commercial  politics.  In  one  word,  the 
fact  is  that  one  of  the  best  countries  and  peoples  in 
South  America,  and  the  one  most  docile  to  the  Church 
and  most  under  its  control,  is  the  most  backward  and 
destitute  and  pitiful. 

6.  Venezuela.  Venezuela  is  another  of  the  South 
American  republics  with  an  immense  area  and  rich 
resources  shamefully  neglected  through  incompetence 
of  government.  The  1904  volume  on  Venezuela  pub- 
lished by  the  Bureau  of  American  Republics  presents 
an  interesting  table  and  comments  upon  it : 

Area  sq.  kilo-  ^  Inhabitants  per 

Country  meters  Population  sq.  kilometer 

Venezuela    1,552,741  2,633,671  1.69 

Germany     540,700  56,367,178  104 

France     536,400  38,961, 945  74 

Italy     286,600  32,475,253  1 13 

Netherlands     33,ioo  5,263,269  159 

Belgium     29,450  6,799,999  231 

Switzerland    4i,340  3,315,443  80 

Ireland    85,150  4,456,546  53 

1,552,740  147,639,631  9514 

The  above  table  shows  that  the  area  of  Venezuela  aggre- 
gates that  of  the  seven  European  countries  therein  consid- 


64  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

ered,  although  its  population  is  fifty-five  times  less  than  their 
total  population.  This  shows  that  Venezuela's  territory  can 
easily  contain  one  hundred  and  fifty  million  (150,000,000) 
inhabitants,  which  would  give  but  96.60  inhabitants  to  the 
square  kilometer. 

Venezuela's  area,  compared  with  that  of  Belgium,  is  fifty- 
two  times  larger  than  the  latter's,  and  to  have  the  latter's 
density  of  population  it  would  have  to  be  peopled  by  three 
hundred  and  fifty-eight  million  inhabitants.'^ 

It  is  a  land  which  might  support  if  not  the  population 
of  Belgium  yet  a  vastly  greater  population  than  that 
of  the  whole  of  South  America.  Japan  is  not  a  richer 
country,  and  yet  Japan,  which  is  one-third  the  size  of 
Venezuela,  sustains  nearly  twenty  times  its  popula- 
tion.   The  land 

abounds  in  natural  resources.  The  fluvial  system  penetrates 
the  most  remote  points  of  her  territories.  The  vast  plains, 
covered  with  verdure  the  entire  year,  furnish  bountiful  sub- 
sistence to  the  herds  of  cattle.  The  mountain  ranges  are 
covered  with  forests,  from  which  are  obtained  rare  and  pre- 
cious woods,  while  the  valleys  and  table-lands  are  rich  in 
varieties  of  cereals  and  fruits  which  grow  in  abundance. 
The  mines,  containing  valuable  minerals,  are,  for  the  most 
part,  undeveloped  and  open  for  investments.  The  principal 
exports  for  the  first  half  of  the  fiscal  year  1907-8  were: 
coffee,  58,489,200  pounds;  cacao,  22,598,021  pounds;  divi-divi, 
8,714,255  pounds;  cattle  and  asphalt.  Rubber  shipments  ag- 
gregated 869,591  pounds,  and  ox-hides  and  goat-skins  to- 
gether, 2,481,298  pounds.2 

7.  Panama.  The  youngest  of  the  South  American 
republics  is  Panama.  It  has  an  area  of  32,380  square 
miles,  nearly  equal  to  that  of  the  state  of  Maine,  and 
a  population  of  361,000  or  ii.i  per  square  mile,  less 
than  one-half  the  population  per  square  mile  of  the 
United  States  of  America. 

1  "  Venezuela,    1904,"    16. 

2  Ibid.,    9,    10, 


SOUTH   AMERICAN    REPUBLICS   OF   TO-DAY  65 

Two  mountain  chains  traverse  the  territory  of  the  repub- 
lic, inclosing  various  valleys  and  plains  which  afford  excellent 
pasturage  for  cattle  and  in  which  all  the  products  of  the 
tropical  zone  are  raised.  The  slopes  of  the  mountains  are 
covered  with  extensive  forests. 

Among  the  products  for  export,  bananas,  cacao,  indigo, 
tobacco,  sugar  cane,  India  rubber,  vegetable  ivory,  turtle 
shells,  pearls  and  mahogany  are  the  most  important. 

The  railroad  from  Colon  to  Panama,  forty-seven  miles  in 
length,  is  still  the  transportation  route  of  the  Panama 
Isthmus.i 

The  Panama  republic  owes  its  being,  of  course, 
to  the  United  States.  Without  our  intervention  and 
support  the  republic  could  not  have  maintained  its  ex- 
istence. It  is  a  very  toy  type  of  republic,  with  appall- 
ing moral,  intellectual,  and  political  needs,  and  with  a 
right  to  claim  from  us  help  to  become  in  reality  the 
repubHc  we  have  made  it  in  name.  The  canal,  of 
course,  is  not  in  the  republic,  but  on  the  canal  zone, 
which  has  been  ceded  to  the  United  States,  and  where 
at  present  there  are  about  7,000  Americans,  including 
women  and  children  and  about  27,000  laborers,  of 
whom  three- fourths  are  West  Indian  negroes  and 
the  rest  Spaniards  and  Italians.  The  Gallegos  Span- 
iards from  northern  Spain  are  said  to  be  the  best 
labor  with  the  Italians  next  and  the  negroes  last. 

South  American  Cities.  The  South  American  lands 
more  than  any  other  countries  in  the  world  are  built 
around  and  governed  by  cities.  As  we  have  seen,  the 
early  settlers,  instead  of  spreading  over  the  country 
and  taking  farms  and  forming  village  communities  as 
was  done  in  North  America,  at  once  established  cities. 
Every  adelantado  or  frontier  commander  was  re- 
quired  to    found    at   least   three   towns.      In    North 

*  "  Panama,    1909,**  3,  8. 


66  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

America  the  collisions  with  the  Indians  were  over 
land.  In  South  America  they  were  over  wealth  and 
labor.  The  North  American  wanted  a  place  to  work 
for  himself.  The  South  American  wanted  the  Indian 
to  work  for  him.  The  Spaniard  and  Portuguese  had 
been  accustomed  to  city  life  and  city  government  at 
home,  and  he  knew  no  other  form  of  association  for 
the  new  land.  At  once,  accordingly,  he  founded  cities 
wherever  he  went,  and  these  are  the  great  cities  of 
South  America  to-day,  Buenos  Aires,  Rio,  Lima, 
Santiago,  Valparaiso,  Bogota,  Quito,  Sao  Paulo, 
Bahia,  Pernambuco,  Montevideo,  La  Paz,  Caracas, 
Asuncion.  These  cities  are  the  central  points  of  life 
and  influence.  There  are  many  smaller  cities,  but 
South  America  is  not  as  Asia  and  Europe  and  North 
America  are — a  land  of  towns,  villages  and  separate 
farmhouses.  More  than  one-seventh  of  the  popula- 
tion of  Chile  is  in  two  cities,  and  a  third  of  it  in  the 
fifty  cities  and  towns  of  over  5,000  population.  In 
the  Argentine,  nearly  one-fifth  of  the  population  is  in 
Buenos  Aires,  the  largest  city  in  the  world  south  of 
the  Equator.  The  small  population  of  each  land  gives 
to  its  one  or  two  largest  cities  a  predominant  in- 
fluence. Almost  everything  centers  in  the  capital. 
Such  a  condition  is  not  wholesome.  These  cities  suck 
in  the  wealth  of  the  nation,  beautifying  themselves 
with  revenues  needed  for  the  development  of  the  na- 
tion's wider  interests,  and  they  absorb  the  energy  of 
government  which  should  be  national  and  not  urban. 
They  have  no  real  independent  municipal  life  but  are 
administered  by  the  central  government  which  leaves 
them  scarcely  any  communal  autonomy.  Sefior  Bravo, 
one  of  the  leading  jurists  of  Chile,  in  his  commen- 
taries on  the  Law  of  Municipal  Organization  refers 


SOUTH   AMERICAN   REPUBLICS   OF   TO-DAY  67 

to  the  fact  and  the  reason  for  it  in  Chile,  and  what  he 
says  is  apphcable  elsewhere: 

In  Chile,  as  in  all  the  old  Spanish  colonies,  the  commune 
was  unknown  until  estabHshed  by  law.  From  the  earliest 
period  of  the  conquest  the  system  of  encomiendas  prevailed 
in  our  country,  by  virtue  of  which  the  conquerors  divided 
among  themselves  the  land  and  the  people  inhabiting  it,  there- 
by making  impossible  those  groupings  of  small  proprietors 
and  of  local  interests  which  elsewhere  formed  the  base  or 
were  the  actuating  cause  of  the  municipality.  Nor  was  the 
period  of  political  and  social  reconstruction  which  followed 
independence  the  most  appropriate  for  promoting  the  organ- 
ization of  the  commune,  and  the  isolated  efforts  made  in  this 
direction  were  unfruitful.  The  habits  and  unprogressive  cus- 
toms of  the  colonial  period  continued  under  the  new  regime.^ 

In  recent  years,  however,  some  of  the  capital  cities 
have  been  achieving  some  measure  of  real  municipal 
government,  and  the  domination  of  the  cities  by  the 
central  governments  has  not  been  without  its  advan- 
tages to  the  cities,  even  if  these  advantages  have  been 
purchased  at  the  cost  of  the  country  districts.  Cities 
like  Rio  and  Buenos  Aires  and  Santiago  have  been 
made  beautiful  cities  and  the  hygienic  conditions,  once 
nearly  as  deadly  in  some  of  them  as  they  are  now  in 
Guayaquil,  have  been  greatly  improved.  In  this  mat- 
ter of  sanitation  and  hygiene  the  South  American 
countries  have  made  real  progress  and  many  of  their 
cities  inherited  a  character  and  distinctive  beauty 
from  the  past  to  which  the  present  has  often  made 
great  additions.  But  even  so  there  is  an  appalling 
amount  of  work  still  to  be  done  to  make  living  whole- 
some in  some  of  the  cities  whose  climatic  conditions 
are  almost  ideal. 

*  Quoted  in  "  Municipal  Organizations  in  Latin  America,  Santiago  de 
Chile."   441. 


68  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

Taxation.  The  burden  of  taxation  in  the  South 
American  states  is  very  uneven.  In  Chile  it  is  ex- 
ceedingly light,  as  we  have  seen.  In  Argentina  it  is 
heavier.  In  Buenos  Aires  there  are  imposts  upon 
street  cars,  carriages,  dogs,  theatres,  bill  boards,  bil- 
liard-halls, telegraph  and  telephone  messages,  the  use 
of  spaces  under  city  streets,  on  provisions  and  wagons 
conveying  them  about  the  city,  peddlers,  hotels,  cel- 
lars, etc.  But  in  Brazil  the  burden  is  heaviest  of  all. 
There  are  large  import  duties  and  the  internal  rev- 
enue levies  are  almost  crushing  to  industry.  Every- 
thing is  taxed.  Even  the  poor  farmer  bringing  his 
goods  to  market  is  taxed  at  the  city  gate  or  in  the 
market.  Prices  in  Brazil  and  Argentina,  accordingly, 
are  higher  than  anywhere  else  in  South  America  and 
many  forms  of  trade  are  intolerably  burdened.  In 
Brazil  especially  a  wise  and  frugal  and  honest  politi- 
cal administration  would  undoubtedly  result  in  such 
an  expansion  of  industry  and  commerce  as  would 
double  the  prosperity  of  the  land. 

Foreign  Trade.  It  is  in  large  part  because  of  the 
woeful  undevelopment  of  indigenous  manufacture 
that  the  imports  of  South  America  are  so  great.  She 
exports  agricultural  and  mineral  products  and  imports 
all  else,  and  some  of  the  South  American  countries 
have  to  import  food  stuffs  also,  although  there  is  not 
one  of  them  that  could  not  amply  supply  a  popula- 
tion many  times  as  great  as  its  own. 

The  greatest  trade  opportunity  of  the  United  States 
is  in  Latin  America.  In  the  first  eight  months  of  the 
government  fiscal  year  1909-10  our  exports  to  Asia 
were  $72,000,000,  a  loss  of  $2,000,000  as  compared 
with  the  preceding  year,  while  our  trade  with  the  rest 
of  the  Western  Hemisphere  was  $300,000,000,  a  gain 


SOUTH   AMERICAN    REPUBLICS   OF   TO-DAY  69 

of  $60,000,000.  Our  trade  with  Porto  Rico  was 
greater  than  our  trade  with  either  China  or  Japan, 
and  our  trade  with  Cuba  exceeded  our  trade  with 
China  and  Japan  combined.  In  1899  our  exports  to 
South  America  were  $15,000,000  less  than  to  Asia, 
but  in  1909  they  were  $10,000,000  greater.  The  Hon. 
John  Barrett  has  stated  vividly  the  facts  as  to  the 
extent  of  South  America's  trade  and  our  inadequate 
but  increasing  share  in  it : 

South  America  proper  conducted  an  average  foreign  trade 
amounting  to  $1,513,415,000,  of  which  the  share  of  the  United 
States  in  1907  was  only  $233,293,300,  including  both  exports 
and  imports — barely  one-seventh.  Analyzing  further  these 
figures  for  the  United  States,  we  discover  that  South  America 
sold  to  us  products  to  the  value  of  $147,680,000  and  bought 
from  us  only  $85,612,400.  This  gives  a  balance  against  us  of 
practically  $60,000,000. 

Another  comparison  shows  how  far  behind  we  are  in  the 
race  with  the  rest  of  the  world.  South  America  purchased 
from  other  nations  products  valued  at  $660,930,000,  of  which 
the  United  States  furnished  $85,612,400,  or  barely  one-eighth, 
and  yet  the  more  we  study  the  South  American  field  the 
more  we  appreciate  that  the  United  States  could  supply  the 
greater  portion  of  its  imports.  Correspondingly,  we  do  not 
give  South  America  as  great  a  market  for  her  products  as 
we  ought,  for,  of  her  total  exports,  amounting  to  $852,485,000, 
the  United  States  purchased  only  $147,680,900,  or  approxi- 
mately one-sixth. 

Having  jyiven  these  figures,  some  of  which  are  averages, 
covering  a  period  of  years,  I  now  desire  to  point  out,  through 
additional  figures,  another  feature  of  the  situation  which  is 
most  encouraging.  .  .  . 

The  entire  commerce,  exports  and  imports,  between  the 
United  States  and  the  countries  to  the  south  of  her  amounted 
in  1897,  ten  years  ago,  to  $252,427,798.  Three  years  later,  in 
1900,  this  had  grown  to  $324,680,368.  Five  years  more,  in 
1905,  it  had  expanded  to  $517,477,368;  while  two  years  later, 
1907,  we  are  gratified  to  note  that  it  has  reached  the  splendid 
total  of  $587,194,945.     It  is  thus  seen  that  in  ten  years  our 


70  SOUTH   AMERICAN   PROBLEMS 

trade  with  Latin  America  has  increased  by  the  vast  sum  of 
$335,000,000,  or  has  more  than  doubled.  Certainly  this  is  a 
record  of  which  our  country  can  be  proud,  and  yet  it  is  only 
a  beginning  of  possibilities. 

Inasmuch  as  the  total  foreign  commerce  of  Latin  America 
for  1907  was  over  $2,000,000,000,  it  can  be  seen  that  the  United 
States  is  far  from  having  her  share.  The  great  point  is  that 
if  the  United  States,  under  present  conditions  and  with  the 
present  lack  of  interest,  can  conduct  a  trade  with  Latin 
America  of  nearly  $600,000,000  per  annum,  it  is  sure  to  do  a 
business  of  $1,000,000,000  in  the  near  future,  after  our  manu- 
facturing and  agricultural  interests  fully  realize  the  value  of 
the  opportunity  and  put  forth  their  best  energies  to 
control  it.i 

Immigration.  This  expansion  of  trade  and  pros- 
perity in  South  America  is  proportionate  to  the  intro- 
duction of  energy  and  capacity  and  character  from 
without.  South  American  progress  is  not  indigenous. 
It  i&  imported.  Those  countries  which  have  received 
no  immigration  are  almost  as  stagnant  now  as  they 
have  been  for  generations.  The  northern  and  west- 
ern nations,  i.  e.,  from  Venezuela  around  to  Bolivia, 
are  the  backward  nations.  There  are  no  railroads, 
no  banks,  no  great  business  interests  in  all  these  re- 
publics which  do  not  depend  somewhere  upon  foreign 
character  and  ability.  And  even  in  Chile  foreign  en- 
terprise and  integrity  are  employed  in  every  great 
commercial  enterprise.  Even  on  the  ships  of  the 
Chilean  corporation,  the  Compaiiia  Sud-Americana  de 
Vapores,  all  the  captains  and  responsible  officers  are 
foreign.  And  it  is  the  scarcity  of  this  foreign  ele- 
ment in  all  these  lands  which  accounts  for  their  back- 
wardness. There  has  been  no  immigration  to  men- 
tion to  any  but  four  of  the  republics  and  these  four 
have  been  already  described  as  the  foremost  nations, 

1  Barrett,  "  Latin  America,  the  Land  of  Opportunity,"  69-73. 


SOUTH   AMERICAN    REPUBLICS   OF   TO-DAY  7 1 

separated  from  the  rest.  In  Venezuela,  in  1894,  the 
latest  reliable  figures  show  that  there  were  44,129 
foreign  residents,  of  whom  13,179  were  Spaniards, 
11,081  Colombians,  6,154  British,  3,179  Italians,  2,545 
French,  962  Germans,  58  North  Americans.  In  BoH- 
via  there  are  only  1,441  Europeans.  In  Peru  about 
70,000  people  enter  the  country  annually  and  60,000 
leave,  a  net  gain  of  10,000  per  annum,  but  few  of 
them  are  Europeans.  And  yet  it  is  the  European  and 
American  element  that  is  to  be  credited  with  almost 
all  of  Peru's  commercial  and  industrial  advancement. 
Paraguay,  which  claims  to  be  able  to  support  a  popu- 
lation of  68,000,000  and  has  an  estimated  population 
of  800,000,  reports  only  4,000  Europeans,  although  it 
encourages  immigration.  Contrast  with  these  lands 
the  four  more  prosperous  states.  Brazil  received  76,- 
292  colonists  in  1901,  while  the  total  number  who 
came  from  1855  to  1901  was  2,023,693.  The  number 
of  immigrants  is  less  now  than  it  was  twenty  years 
ago.  In  1 89 1,  due  in  part  to  a  crisis  in  the  Argentine 
which  lessened  the  immigration  there,  277,808  people 
came  to  Brazil,  of  whom  116,000  were  Italians.  The 
"  Statesman's  Year  Book "  estimates  that  there  are 
1,000,000  Germans  in  Brazil,  which  is  probably  an 
overestimate.  Sao  Paulo  is  almost  a  foreign  city,  and 
the  result  is  seen  in  its  growth  from  28,000  in  1872  to 
64,000  in  1890,  to  239,000  in  1900,  its  present  popu- 
lation being  estimated  at  400,000.  In  Chile  the 
number  of  Germans  and  English  in  1907  was  over 
20,000,  with  as  many  Spaniards,  and  representatives 
of  almost  every  other  European  nationality.  The  Ar- 
gentine, which  is  the  South  American  wonderland  in 
wealth  and  development,  is  predominantly  foreign. 
Even  the  Spanish  element  has  been  almost  overmas- 
tered by  the  Italian,  and  the  Italian  stock  has  been  a 


72  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

good  one.  Argentina  is  becoming  a  new  Italy,  while 
British  and  German  capital,  and  with  the  capital  men 
to  supervise  it,  have  been  poured  in  Hke  water.  It  is 
estimated  that  Great  Britain  has  £280,732,626  in- 
vested in  Argentina.  Europe  as  a  whole  has  $3,500,- 
000,000  invested  in  South  Ajnerica.^  It  is  the  new 
blood  and  character  from  without  which  account  for 
the  progress  which  South  America  is  making.  Even 
in  Chile,  where  it  may  seem  to  be  Chilean,  the  men 
who  are  leading  the  nation  bear  names  that  show  their 
British  or  German  ancestry.  With  us  it  is  now  the 
native  stock  that  dominates  and  improves  the  im- 
ported blood.  In  South  America  the  imported  blood 
dominates  and  improves  the  native  stock.  The  gov- 
erning class  is  European  rather  than  American. 
Beneath  this  governing  class,  of  course,  is  the  great 
body  of  people  with  the  heavier  strain  of  native  blood, 
uneducated,  unawakened. 

Causes  of  South  American  Backwardness.  It  is  this 
heavy  strain  of  Indian  blood,  and  of  negro  blood  as 
well  in  Brazil,  and  the  unfavorable  climatic  conditions 
of  South  America  which  are  usually  charged  with  the 
responsibility  for  the  backwardness  of  South  America. 

But  more  can  be  made  of  the  climate  than  is  war- 
ranted, for  Argentina  and  Chile  and  Uruguay  lie  in 
the  temperate  zone.  Chile,  instead  of  being  a  killing 
ground  for  little  children,  should  be  one  of  the  most 
beautiful  countries  in  the  world.  Its  valleys  and  vil- 
lages should  make  it  a  second  Switzerland.  The 
Argentine  is  a  great  prairie  like  our  own  or  the  Cana- 
dian west.  The  west  coast  also  above  Chile,  while 
tropical,  is  cooled  by  the  Humboldt  or  Peruvian  cur- 

*  Pepper,    "  Conciliation   through    Commerce   and    Industry   in    South 
America,"    9. 


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SOUTH    AMERICAN    REPUBLICS    OF   TO-DAY   73 

rent,  and  the  table-lands,  including  Colombia  and 
Ecuador,  cannot  be  called  tropical,  while  Brazil  is  a 
plateau  outside  of  the  low  Amazon  basin.  In  the 
state  of  Rio,  within  one  hundred  miles  of  the  Atlantic, 
is  the  mountain  of  Itatiaya  higher  than  any  mountain 
in  the  United  States  east  of  the  Rockies,  and  from 
Bahia  southwards  a  journey  of  fifty  miles  inland  lifts 
one  out  of  the  tropical  air.  South  America  can- 
not plead  her  climatic  or  physical  conditions  as  excuse 
for  her  moral  or  political  problems  or  her  industrial 
backwardness.  These  conditions  are  advantageous.  A 
different  people  would  have  worked  out  a  far  differ- 
ent result.  As  Charles  Darwin  wrote  in  his  *'  Nat- 
uralist's Voyage  in  the  Beagle,"  chapter  xix,  after  his 
memorable  visit  to  South  America  in  1832-35,  con- 
trasting Australia  even  in  1836  with  South  America: 
"  At  last  we  anchored  within  Sydney  Cove.  We 
found  the  little  basin  occupied  by  many  large  ships 
and  surrounded  by  warehouses.  In  the  evening  I 
walked  through  the  town  and  returned  full  of  ad- 
miration at  the  whole  scene.  It  is  a  most  magnificent 
testimony  to  the  power  of  the  British  nation.  Here, 
in  a  less  promising  country,  scores  of  years  have  done 
many  times  more  than  an  equal  number  of  centuries 
have  effected  in  South  America." 

The  fundamental  trouble  in  South  America  is  eth- 
ical. The  people  of  South  America  have  their  noble 
qualities  as  truly  and  as  conspicuously  as  any  other 
people.  And  there  are  among  them,  as  among  all 
peoples,  all  types  of  character.  Speaking  generally, 
they  are  warm-hearted,  courteous,  friendly,  kindly  to 
children,  respectful  to  religious  things,  patriotic  to 
the  very  soul ;  but  the  tone,  the  vigor,  the  moral  bot- 
tom,   the    hard    veracity,    the    indomitable    purpose, 


74  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

the  energy,  the  directness,  the  integrity  of  the  Teu- 
tonic peoples  are  lacking  in  them.  Some  of  the 
South  American  population,  like  the  Chileans,  the 
Bolivians  and  the  Peruvians  are  more  somber  and 
reserved,  comparatively,  than  others.  Think  of  the 
deep  shadows  of  their  past  experiences !  But,  in 
general,  what  Dr.  Howell,  who  has  lived  long  among 
the  Brazilians,  says  of  them  is  true  of  the  South 
American  type: 

The  Brazilian  people  are  in  general  hospitable,  generous, 
charitable,  gay,  courteous,  communicative,  quick  at  learning, 
rather  fond  of  show,  somewhat  ceremonious  and  proud, 
rather  inclined  to  look  down  on  labor  and  laborers,  but  with 
a  remarkable  suavity  and  a  native  politeness  which  is  in  gen- 
eral in  the  lowest  as  in  the  highest  classes.  Though  not  as 
excitable  as  the  Spanish,  there  is  still  a  strong  element  of 
jealousy  in  their  disposition,  and  a  tendency  to  vindictiveness. 

Physically  the  typical  Brazilian  is  small  of  stature,  with 
.  .  .  nervous  and  bilious  temperament,  bloodless  and  sallow 
complexion,  and  a  generally  emaciated  and  wornout  look. 
.  .  .  The  general  loose  ideas  in  regard  to  the  marriage  rela- 
tion, together  with  the  universally  immoral  lives  even  of  the 
priests  .  .  .  have  undermined  the  physical  health  of  the  peo- 
ple, while  sowing  the  seeds  of  disease  which  more  and  more 
incapacitate  them  for  the  work  yet  to  be  done  in  developing 
the  immense  resources  of  this  magnificent  country. 

Intellectually,  even  among  the  better  educated,  there  is  an 
apathy  which  is  manifest  in  science,  politics  and  religion. 
Rome  has  persistently  repressed  speculation  and  independence 
of  thought  till  now  the  people  are  intellectual  sluggards.  Be- 
cause of  this  apathy  there  is  the  utmost  indifference  in  most 
men  concerning  national  interests  and  policies. 

Lack  of  conscientiousness  is  said  to  be  the  leading  moral 
defect  of  the  Brazilians,  while  reverence  for  ecclesiastical 
tradition  is  an  equal  obstacle.  This  latter  characteristic  not 
only  stands  in  the  way  of  their  accepting  a  new  and  true 
view  of  life,  but  is  equally  unfortunate  in  its  economical 
effect.1' 

'  Quoted  in  "  Protestant  Missions  in  South  America,"  S^i. 


SOUTH   AMERICAN   REPUBLICS   OF   TO-DAY   75 

This  judgment  on  the  moral  need  of  South  Amer- 
ica is  the  judgment  of  a  friend,  not  a  foe.  Those 
who  express  it  have  no  Pharisaic  contentment  with 
conditions  in  Europe  or  the  United  States.  Whoever 
will  point  out  and  help  us  to  correct  our  faults  is  wel- 
comed among  us.  Those  who  love  South  America 
best  are  equally  fearless  in  pointing  out  her  needs. 

In  the  best  general  book  we  have  on  the  eastern 
countries  of  South  America,  Mr.  Hale  says: 

The  Latin  American  man  has  no  conception  of  chastity. 
On  one  point  our  inheritance  of  revolt  from  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church  has  made  us  superior  to  them.  We,  as  a 
people,  have  what  we  style  the  New  England  conscience,  or 
what  with  more  dignity  should  be  called  a  moral  sense;  this 
is  eminently  self-sustaining  in  all  our  struggles  for  improve- 
ment and  reform.  A  moral  sense  has  never  been  more  than 
feebly  developed  in  South  America,  and  where  it  makes  it- 
self felt  it  has  become  a  force  artistic  or  ethical  rather  than 
religious  or  moral.  .  .  .^ 

Ethically  speaking,  there  is  a  tone  of  immorality  running 
through  all  South  American  life.  In  diplomacy  it  may  be 
called  finesse,  and  the  bluntly  spoken  word,  which  we  fondly 
think  is  the  bond  of  an  American  or  an  Englishman,  is 
hedged  by  the  blossom  of  verbiage  so  characteristic  of  the 
Romance  tongue.  I  have  heard  repeated  testimony  to  the 
high  standard  of  their  financial  morality;  bankruptcy  is  less 
frequent  than  with  us  and  the  long  credits  granted  by  Eng- 
lish and  German  houses  prove  the  trustworthiness  of  ordi- 
nary business  men.  I  know  of  one  case  on  the  Orinoco  where 
an  Englishman  once  in  six  months  meets  a  trader  from  the 
interior ;  he  has  no  real  security  for  his  sales,  yet  if  at  the 
end  of  the  first  half-year  the  previous  bill  is  unpaid,  because 
the  trader  could  not  reach  Ciudad  Bolivar,  the  Englishman 
does  not  worry  at  all;  he  knows  that  when  the  year  expires 
the  money  will  be  forthcoming,  penny  for  penny.  This 
method  of  long  credits  frightens  the  American  Yankee  and 
is  an  obstacle  to  trade  which  otherwise  might  grow  into 
prosperous  proportions. 

iHale,    "The    South    Americans,"    6. 


76  SOUTH    AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

Another  so-called  manifestation  of  immorality  is  in  their 
sexual  relations.  I  must,  however,  come  to  the  defense  of 
the  South  American  woman.  I  have  had  an  intimate  ac- 
quaintance in  Latin  American  homes  for  years,  and  nowhere 
in  the  world  have  I  seen  purer  domesticity,  nowhere  is  there 
greater  domestic  service,  a  sincerer  love  of  children  or  an 
honester  attempt  to  lead  the  life  which  according  to  their 
interpretation  God  intended  them  to  lead.  In  Buenos  Aires 
and  Rio  there  is  a  fast  set,  as  there  is  in  New  York  and 
Paris,  and  the  idle  rich  make  opportunity  for  indulgence  just 
as  they  do  everywhere.  Our  ways  may  not  be  their  ways, 
nor  can  an  Anglo-Saxon  always  understand  the  domestic 
ambition  of  the  Latin ;  but  it  is  a  shocking  error  to  withhold 
just  praise  from  a  pure-minded  sex  at  the  other  side  of  the 
equator.  South  American  women  have  asked  me  why  there 
were  so  many  divorces  in  the  United  States;  with  them  mar- 
riage is  a  sacrament  and  a  social  obligation,  and  I  feel  con- 
vinced that  they  preserve  their  virtue  and  happiness  as  well 
as  we  do. 

In  the  lower  classes  conditions  are  different;  marriage  is 
more  often  a  form  and  a  celebration ;  the  percentage  of  il- 
legitimacy is  high,  and  neither  man  nor  woman  is  discred- 
ited. It  is  analogous  to  what  prevails  among  the  negro  in 
our  southern  states  or  in  many  of  the  highly  civilized  and 
moral  West  Indian  islands — extra-matrimonial  maternity  is 
no  crime,  and  man,  not  woman,  is  accountable  for  unsanc- 
tified  indulgences.     Male  chastity  is  practically  unknown. i 

The  official  statistics  of  the  South  American  gov- 
ernments and  the  facts  which  the  most  superficial 
knowledge  of  conditions  brings  to  light  confirm  Mr. 
Hale's  judgment. 

According  to  the  census  of  Brazil  in  1890,  2,603,- 
489  or  between  one-fifth  and  one-sixth  of  the  popula- 
tion are  returned  as  illegitimate.  In  Ecuador  Mr.  W. 
E.  Curtis  says  that  more  than  one-half  of  the  popula- 
tion are  of  illegitimate  birth.  At  one  time  in  Para- 
guay, after  the  long  wars,  it  was  estimated  that  the 

1  Hale,  "  The  South  Americans,"  30of. 


SOUTH   AMERICAN    REPUBLICS   OF   TO-DAY  ^^ 

percentage  of  illegitimate  births  was  over  90  per  cent. 
In  Venezuela,  according  to  the  official  statistics  for 
1906,  there  were  that  year  47,606  illegitimate  births,  or 
68.8  per  cent.  In  Chile  the  general  percentage  is  33  per 
cent  and  the  highest  in  any  department  a  little  over  66 
per  cent.  In  England  the  percentage  is  6  per  cent, 
and  in  France  and  Belgium,  7  per  cent.  In  Bolivia, 
on  four  random  pages  of  the  Military  Register  of  the 
Republic  I  counted  158  names;  of  these  names,  97 
are  stated  to  be  legitimate  and  61,  or  38.6  per  cent 
illegitimate.  There  is  no  shame  about  the  matter  in 
this  register.  The  names  of  father  and  mother  and 
their  occupation  are  given  in  the  case  of  each  illegiti- 
mate born,  as  well  as  in  the  case  of  the  legitimate.  In 
Uruguay  in  1906,  27J  per  cent  of  the  births  were 
illegitimate.  Some  years  ago  in  Barranquilla,  Colom- 
bia, Father  Revallo,  of  the  parish  of  San  Miguel,  pre- 
pared from  the  church  and  municipal  records  a  table 
of  the  vital  statistics  of  Barranquilla  for  fifteen  years 
and  published  it  in  one  of  the  secular  papers  of  Bar- 
ranquilla. This  table  showed  that  the  illegitimate 
births  during  this  period  were  71.4  per  cent  of  the 
total  births.  In  Bogota  the  illegitimate  births  usually 
outnumber  the  legitimate.  Barranquilla  and  Bogota 
are  fairly  representative  of  the  whole  of  Colombia. 
The  statistics  would  seem  to  show  that  the  moral  con- 
ditions in  Brazil  are  better  than  in  any  other  South 
American  land  unless  it  be  the  Argentine,  for  which 
no  statistics  of  illegitimate  births  are  available.  But 
Brazil's  need  is  deep  and  real  also,  as  witness  this 
quotation  from  a  recent  article  written  by  a  priest  in 
answer  to  a  layman  (Roman  Catholic)  who  wrote  an 
article  in  one  of  the  daily  papers  of  Bahia  against 
celibacy,  blaming  his  own  Church  for  all  the  immo- 


78  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

rality  of  the  country,  holding  that  if  the  Church 
would  do  away  with  the  prohibition  of  marriage  to 
the  priests,  the  country  would  be  healed  of  all  its  im- 
morality. The  priest  in  his  answer  shows  just  what 
the  moral  condition  of  the  country  is.  He  says  to  this 
layman : 

Will  you  do  me  the  kindness  to  answer  me,  without  pas- 
sion and  without  preconceived  notions,  why  the  religious 
marriage  of  a  deluge  of  laymen  has  not  had  the  effect  of 
moralizing  them — men  who,  notwithstanding  their  being  mar- 
ried, give  the  most  sorrowful  spectacle  of  the  most  developed 
libertinism.  Is  it  possible  that  you,  who  are  so  able  to  give 
the  exact  number  of  priests  who  are  living  in  concubinage, 
from  the  great  knowledge  you  have  of  our  State,  have  never 
heard  it  said  that  there  is  an  uncountable  number  of  laymen, 
married  men,  yes,  twice  married,  married  by  the  civil  au- 
thority and  by  the  Church,  who  yet,  notwithstanding  all  this 
marriage,  spend,  without  exaggeration,  large  fortunes  with 
women,  who  by  no  title  or  right  whatever  belong  to  them, 
thus  giving  great  scandals  to  society  and  do  the  most  shame- 
ful injustice  to  their  own  wives  and  children? 

But  most  authoritative  of  all  is  the  deliverance  of 
the  Plenary  Council  of  the  Latin  American  Bishops 
held  in  Rome  in  1899,  describing  the  moral  conditions 
in  Latin  America.  In  the  Acts  and  Decrees  of  the 
Council,  it  is  declared: 

The  widespread  pollution  of  fornication  is  to  be  deplored 
and  condemned,  but  especially  the  most  foul  pest  of  con- 
cubinage, which,  increasing  both  in  public  and  in  private, 
in  great  cities  as  well  as  in  country  villages,  is  leading  not  a 
few  men  of  every  station  to  eternal  destruction.  Most  un- 
fortunate will  be  the  religious  training  and  the  moral  esti- 
mation of  the  children  begotten  of  an  unhappy  union  of  this 
sort.  So  dreadful  a  plague  brings  in  fear  and  terror  alike, 
destructive  of  all  religion,  of  all  honor  and  of  true  civiliza- 
tion. On  that  account,  moreover,  the  condition  of  those 
living  in   concubinage  is  pitiable,  because,  having  wallowed 


SOUTH   AMERICAN   REPUBLICS   OF   TO-DAY  79 

in  the  filth  of  unchastity,  they  are  truly  converted  only  with 
great  difficulty,  because,  being  made  a  most  dangerous  rock 
of  stumbling  and  a  cause  of  many  offences,  it  is  with  great 
difficulty  that  they  are  willing  to  satisfy  God  and  men  and 
the  Church.  Therefore  let  the  guardians  of  souls,  with 
bowels  of  mercy,  seek  out  wandering  sheep  of  this  kind  and 
lead  them  back  to  Christ's  fold;  and,  terrified  by  no  difficul- 
ties and  placing  their  hope  in  God,  let  them  despair  of  the 
safety  of  no  sinner,  but  with  the  most  ardent  zeal  let  them 
be  solicitous  for  the  conversion  of  all  sinners.  Hence,  avail- 
ing themselves  of  the  advice  of  their  own  Bishop,  let  them 
strive  to  prepare  a  plain  way  of  conversion,  and  as  often  as 
scandals  can  be  removed  from  the  midst  by  legitimate  mar- 
riage, let  them  gladly  remit  temporal  prerogatives  and  rights 
that  they  may  win  souls  for  God  and  legitimize  offspring, 
according  to  the  rules  handed  down  by  approved  authors. 

And  with  no  less  zeal  let  parish  priests  and  confessors  be 
solicitous  for  the  conversion  of  adulterers,  since  their  tem- 
poral and  eternal  lot  ought  to  be  regarded  as  utterly  miser- 
able. Of  these  adulterers  the  Council  of  Trent  has  said :  "  It 
is  a  grave  sin  that  dissolute  men  should  have  concubines, 
but  it  is  a  most  grave  sin,  and  one  committed  with  remark- 
able contempt  for  this  great  sacrament  (matrimony)  that 
married  men  also  should  live  in  this  state  of  damnation  and 
should  dare  sometimes  even  to  support  and  keep  them  at 
home  with  their  wives."  1 

Throughout  South  America  it  is  safe  to  say  that 
from  one-fourth  to  one-half  of  the  population  is  ille- 
gitimate, born  of  parents  married  neither  by  Church 
nor  by  State.  We  must  allow  for  cases  of  unmar- 
ried people  who  are  faithful  to  each  other  but  in  such 
cases  the  responsibility  is  upon  the  Church  whose 
charge  for  marriage  has  seemed  prohibitory  to  such 
couples  and  whose  constant  influence  is  opposed  to 
civil  marriage.  The  idea  that  a  man  should  be  morally 
pure  is  too  little  proclaimed  and  too  much  ridiculed  in 
South  America.    The  students  say  quite  candidly,  and 

iTitulus  XI,  Caput  I,  329-336,  §§  7S6,  757. 


8o  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

those  who  teach  them  sadly  admit  it,  that  for  a  boy 
to  remain  chaste  after  the  age  of  sixteen  or  eighteen 
is  a  rare  exception.  Workers  among  students  in  cities 
hke  Rio  and  Buenos  Aires,  who  know  their  hves  in- 
timately, say  that  they  could  number  on  the  fingers  of 
their  hands  all  the  absolutely  pure  young  men  they 
know  in  these  great  student  centers.  South  America 
is  a  continent  deficient  in  the  standard  of  absolute 
moral  purity  for  men.  Any  record  of  diseases  such 
as  the  doctors  in  the  hospitals  lay  before  one,  confirms 
this  judgment.  There  is  horrid  immorality  in  our 
own  land,  and  its  existence  is  a  warrant  and  a  call  for 
any  effort  which  anyone  is  willing  to  make  to  heal  it. 
Who  dare  deny  the  right  and  duty  of  any  morally 
cleansing  power  to  go  in  upon  this  moral  need  in 
South  America?  There  are  hundreds  of  men  in 
South  America  to-day  who  declare  that  they  never 
received  any  standard  of  purity  or  any  power  of 
righteousness  until  they  heard  the  Gospel  from  the 
evangelical  missionaries.  We  were  deeply  impressed 
by  the  solemn  statement  of  one  mature  man,  that  all 
the  men  who  had  been  boys  with  him  were  dead, 
their  lives  having  been  eaten  out  by  sin,  and  that  he 
would  have  gone  their  way  with  them  and  was  only 
living  and  working  now  because  Christ,  whom  he  met 
through  the  missions  and  whom  he  had  never  known 
in  the  South  American  system,  had  redeemed  him,  in 
body  as  well  as  soul. 

There  are  good  men  in  South  America  who  realize 
and  mourn  these  deep  moral  needs.  There  are  other 
men  both  there  and  here  who  think  lightly  of  what 
the  Latin  American  bishops  so  earnestly  deplore.  Im- 
morality, such  men  say,  is  inevitable  and  universal, 
and  there  are  worse  evils  than  it  is.     But  we  know 


SOUTH   AMERICAN    REPUBLICS   OF   TO-DAY   8l 

that  nations  that  are  seamed  with  moral  evil,  on  what- 
ever continent  they  may  be,  are  doomed  and  that  true 
and  lasting  national  prosperity  and  progress  can  come 
only  to  the  nations  which  are  built  on  clean  men  and 
pure  homes. 

The  deepest  need  in  South  America  is  the  moral 
need.  The  continent  wants  character.  And  charac- 
ter has  two  great  springs,  education  and  religion.  Are 
these  springs  clean  and  abounding  in  South  America? 


CHAPTER   III 

THE    PROBLEM    OF    EDUCATION 

The  South  American  repubhcs  have  never  lacked 
farseeing  men  who  reaHzed  that  popular  government 
must  rest  on  popular  intelligence  and  that  democratic 
institutions  cannot  be  based  on  general  illiteracy  or 
on  an  educated  oligarchy.  Sarmiento,  one  of  South 
America's  greatest  statesmen,  was  one  such  man. 
*'  Found  schools,"  he  said,  "  and  you  will  do  away 
with  revolutions."  Another  of  these  patriotic  men 
lives  in  Montevideo  and  has  spent  his  Hfe  in  getting 
together  a  museum  of  educational  material  illustra- 
tive of  school  equipment  and  pedagogical  methods 
with  the  one  ambition  of  advancing  popular  educa- 
tion. From  the  days  of  Sarmiento  there  have  been 
statesmen  who  put  the  improvement  and  enlargement 
of  educational  facilities  foremost  among  their  policies. 
Balmaceda  whom  Chile  greatly  laments  and  whose 
real  services  to  his  country  are  now  recognized,  did 
this  and  built  many  of  the  public  school  buildings  in 
Chile.  Some  of  the  best  men  on  the  continent  are 
serving  the  state  in  education.  Each  government  has 
its  Minister  of  Education  or  places  a  department  of 
education  under  some  other  minister,  as,  for  example, 
the  Minister  of  Justice. 

But  the  educational  problems  with  which  these  re- 
publics   have    to    deal    are   difficult    and    perplexing. 

82 


THE   PROBLEM    OF   EDUCATION  83 

They  have  come  down  to  them  out  of  the  colonial 
period  with  certain  distinct  transmitted  characteris- 
tics. Some  of  these  are  brought  out  in  the  ''  His- 
torical Sketch  of  Education  in  the  Argentine  Repub- 
lic," by  Prof.  Carlos  O.  Bunge,  of  the  University  of 
Buenos  Aires.^  The  first  section  of  this  sketch  de- 
scribes *'  education  during  the  colonial  epoch" : 

The  conquest  and  colonization  of  Spanish  America  were 
effected  at  a  time  when  the  divine  right  of  kings  was  an 
unquestioned  fundamental  dogma  of  the  political  creed  of 
European  nations.  The  principal  object  of  all  the  laws  re- 
lating to  the  Spanish  colonies  and  their  institutions  was  ta 
maintain  the  new  lands  and  peoples  under  the  temporal  and, 
to  a  certain  extent,  under  the  ecclesiastical  dominion  of  the 
Catholic  King.  .  .  . 

There  was  no  methodical  plan,  but  some  form  of  instruc- 
tion was  instituted  in  each  locality  according  to  its  condition 
and  resources.  The  classical  forms  of  the  teaching  bodies 
of  the  middle  ages,  which  required  that  the  instruction 
should  be  strictly  dogmatic  in  its  character,  were  recognized 
in  these  decrees.  In  such  distant  lands  and  among  such  a 
wild  and  turbulent  mixed  population  as  they  contained  a 
severe  discipline  in  habits  of  obedience  to  the  Crown  and 
Church  was  indispensable.  The  Government,  therefore,  al- 
ways fearful  of  insubordination,  reenforced  by  its  authority 
the  educational  system  based  upon  dogmatism  and  obedience 
which  the  Jesuits  had  already  established  in  Spain  and  in 
nearly  all  the  Catholic  world.  .  .  . 

The  instruction  was  of  a  pronounced  theological  character. 
The  principal  object  of  the  universities  was  to  graduate  a 
Creole  clergy  who  should  keep  the  principle  of  the  divine 
right  of  kings  alive  and  strong  in  the  colonies. 

In  the  third  section  of  his  sketch,  Professor  Bunge 
speaks  more  at  length  of  the  University  of  Cordova, 

*  Translated  from  "  El  Monitor  de  la  Educacion  Comun,"  October  31, 
1908,  and  published  in  the  Report  of  the  U.  S.  Commissioner  of  Edu- 
cation,   for    1909. 


84  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

which  was  typical  of  the  rest,  which  was  founded  in 
the  early  part  of  the  seventeenth  century  by  the  Jes- 
uits and  which  maintained  its  aristocratic  character 
until  its  "nationalization"  (that  is,  until  the  national 
government  assumed  charge  of  it)  in  1854.  Up  to 
that  time  purity  of  blood  was  a  prerequisite  to  ad- 
mission, and  persons  of  mixed  negro  and  white  blood 
in  particular  were  denied  entrance. 

The  Roman  Catholic  Church  deserves  credit  for 
whatever  education  was  given  in  the  colonial  days 
and  its  limitations  were  in  the  main  simply  those  of 
contemporary  ecclesiastical  education  in  Europe,  but 
the  spirit  and  principles  of  this  education  lingered  on 
after  the  colonial  period  had  ended  and  the  repub- 
lican era  had  begun,  in  which  the  first  essential  of  the 
new  form  of  government  was  that  all  the  people 
should  be  educated  and  that  their  education  should  be 
an  education  in  liberty.  The  old  colonial  education 
had  been  all  in  the  interest  of  a  certain  political 
theory.  It  had  been  designed  to  make  men  submis- 
sive to  monarchical  authority  in  State  and  Church.  It 
was  an  education  in  traditional  opinions.  There  was 
no  scientific  freedom.  There  was  no  free  study  of 
history.  There  was  no  general  and  popular  educa- 
tion. There  were  no  technical  or  industrial  studies. 
The  whole  system  was  ecclesiastical  and  aristocratic. 
The  result  is  that  to-day  in  comparison  with  the  ad- 
vanced nations  of  the  world  there  is  a  great  neglect 
of  popular  education  and  an  appalling  illiteracy. 

Before  we  face  these  facts,  however,  and  other 
educational  defects,  it  will  be  well  to  recognize  the 
great  progress  which  the  South  American  republics 
have  made  in  education  and  the  extent  of  their  pres- 
ent   educational    equipment.      Argentina,    Chile    and 


THE   PROBLEM    OF   EDUCATION  85 

Brazil  lead  the  South  American  states  in  their  educa- 
tional development. 

I.  Argentina.  In  1868  when  General  Sarmiento 
was  in  Washington  as  the  Argentine  Minister,  he  was 
elected  to  the  presidency  of  the  republic.  Returning 
to  Buenos  Aires,  he  took  up  his  work  full  of  the 
ideals  of  education  which  had  come  to  him  in  the 
United  States.  One  of  his  first  acts  was  to  commis- 
sion Dr.  William  Goodfellow,  an  American  mission- 
ary returning  to  the  United  States,  to  send  out  some 
educated  American  women  to  establish  normal  schools 
in  Argentina.  Some  capable  women  were  sent  and 
were  nobly  supported  in  their  work.  Scholarships 
were  founded  for  deserving  pupils  and  the  influence 
of  the  work  then  done  abides  to  this  day.  It  gave 
Argentina  the  place  of  leadership  in  Spanish  educa- 
tion. In  a  paper  on  "  Educational  Progress  in  the 
Argentine  Republic  and  Chile  "  in  the  Report  of  the 
United  States  Commissioner  of  Education  for  1909,^ 
Prof.  L.  S.  Rowe,  of  the  University  of  Pennsylvania, 
gives  a  comprehensive  and  accurate  account  of  pres- 
ent educational  conditions: 

The  impulse  given  to  public  education  under  the  presidency 
of  Sarmiento  assured  the  Argentine  Republic  a  position  of 
leadership  in  educational  matters  among  the  South  American 
Republics.  Although  much  has  been  accomplished  since  that 
time,  both  in  the  extension  of  the  system  and  in  the  improve- 
ment of  methods,  it  cannot  be  said  that  the  Argentine  Re- 
public has  maintained  that  position  of  undisputed  leadership 
in  South  American  educational  matters  which  it  once  occu- 
pied.    The  most  serious  obstacles  to  progress  have  been : 

First.  The  poverty  of  the  Provinces,  upon  which  the  re- 
sponsibility for  primary  education  was  placed  under  the  con- 
stitution of  1853,  and — 

Second.    The  lack  of  stability  in  the  educational  policy  of 

*  323-349. 


86  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

the  Federal  Government  in  the  development  of  the  system 
of  secondary  instruction.  The  technical  direction  of  this 
branch  of  the  educational  system  has  suffered  severely  from 
the  uncertainties  of  political  changes.  Continuity  of  policy 
has  been  quite  impossible.  Each  incoming  minister  of  public 
instruction  has  attempted  to  leave  his  impress  upon  the  sys- 
tem of  secondary  instruction  by  incorporating  his  personal 
views  into  the  curriculum. 

Dr.  Rowe  publishes  a  table  showing  the  total  popu- 
lation of  the  Argentine  on  December  21,  1905,  to 
have  been  5,974,771.  The  primary  school  population, 
between  six  and  fourteen  years  of  age,  was  1,194,945. 
The  total  actual  attendance  in  primary  schools  was 
602,565,  of  whom  one-fifth  were  in  private  schools. 
About  50  per  cent  of  the  primary  school  population 
was  in  school.  In  the  United  States,  according  to  the 
census  of  1900,  the  number  of  children  between  five 
and  fourteen  years  of  age  was  16,954,257.  The  num- 
ber of  these  children  in  school  was  10,717,696  or  67 
per  cent.  One-tenth  of  the  total  population  of  the 
Argentina  was  in  primary  schools.  One-seventh  of 
the  total  population  of  the  United  States  was  in 
schools  for  the  same  aged  children. 

In  the  Argentine  there  were  26  "  colegios  "  or  sec- 
ondary schools  with  a  total  budget  of  $1,385,806.  Dr. 
Rowe  speaks  of  two  notable  defects  in  these  schools 
— the  instability  of  the  curriculum  and  the  lack  of 
carefully  trained  teachers: 

Instead  of  training  men  especially  for  these  positions,  the 
unfortunate  plan  has  been  adopted,  especially  in  the  smaller 
towns,  of  dividing  the  "  catedras  "  amongst  the  resident  and 
practicing  lawyers   and  physicians.  .  .  . 

Another  danger  to  which  every  minister  of  public  instruc- 
tion is  subjected  is  the  tremendous  pressure  for  appoint- 
ments to  teaching  positions  in  these  schools.  Inasmuch  as 
there  is  no  special  pedagogical  preparation  requisite  for  such 


THE   PROBLEM    OF   EDUCATION  ^'J 

appointments,  political  leaders  are  besieged  with  applications, 
and  soon  find  themselves  unable  to  withstand  the  pres- 
sure. .  .  . 

The  description  of  secondary  education  would  be  incom- 
plete without  some  reference  to  the  large  number  of  Catholic 
"  colegios "  under  the  direction  of  the  religious  orders — 
Jesuits,  Redemptionists,  etc.  It  is  to  these  schools  that  the 
sons  of  the  leading  families  are  sent.  The  State  exercises 
some  control,  but  this  control  is  quite  inadequate.  The  im- 
portant position  occupied  by  private  schools  is  evident  from 
the  fact  that  in  the  city  of  Buenos  Aires  there  are  at  the 
present  time  450  private  as  compared  with  190  public  schools. 

The  secondary  schools  for  women  are  known  as  "  liceos." 
Of  these  there  are  but  two  at  present  in  the  Argentine  Re- 
public, one  in  Buenos  Aires  and  the  other  in  La  Plata.  Their 
curriculum  is  even  more  overburdened,  for  to  all  the  studies 
of  the  "  colegios  '*  music  and  domestic  science  have  been 
added. 

There  are  35  normal  schools  having  a  four-year 
course,  with  two  additional  years  for  those  who  wish 
to  qualify  for  teaching  in  normal  schools.  There  are 
three  elementary  commercial  schools  and  two  indus- 
trial schools  and  a  few  special  schools. 

Of  the  three  national  universities,  the  oldest  is  the 
University  of  Cordova,  erected  nearly  three  cen- 
turies ago.  In  fact,  it  is  the  second  oldest  university 
on  the  American  Continent,  having  been  founded  in 
1609.  The  other  two  universities,  Buenos  Aires  and 
La  Plata,  are  comparatively  recent  foundations,  the 
latter  having  been  established  but  four  years  ago. 

A  worker  who  knows  the  university  students  well 
tells  us  of  their  moral  and  religious  conditions: 

The  National  University  at  Buenos  Aires  has  enrolled  over 
four  thousand  young  men  of  the  influential  classes  of  the 
Argentine  Republic.  At  least  half  of  them  come  from  the 
smaller  cities  and  towns  and  live  in  the  boarding  houses 
of  the  city.     The  atmosphere  in  which  these  students  live 


88  SOUTH   AMERICAN   PROBLEMS 

is  not  conducive  to  moral  vigor.  There  is  every  encourage- 
ment to  immorality  and  gambling,  which  are  the  great  vices, 
and,  unfortunately,  the  great  majority  have  no  conscience  on 
these  sins. 

As  regards  religion,  I  would  say  that  not  over  ten  per  cent 
of  them  are  more  than  nominally  identified  with  Roman 
Catholicism,  which  is  the  State  religion.  Another  ten  per 
cent  take  a  hostile  attitude  towards  the  Roman  Church.  This 
hostility  does  not  mean,  however,  that  there  is  any  sym- 
pathy with  Protestantism,  in  the  best  sense  of  that  word. 
They  are  in  sympathy  with  a  Protestantism  that  protests, 
but  they  have  had  no  contact  with  evangelical  Christianity. 
Christianity  and  Romanism,  indeed,  mean  to  them  one  and 
the  same  thing.  The  great  mass  of  students  are  indifferent, 
never  having  given  any  thought  to  religious  questions.  They 
believe  in  nothing.^ 

2.  Chile.  Professor  Rowe's  paper  passes  from  Ar- 
gentina to  Chile: 

Educational  progress  in  Chile  presents  a  striking  contrast 
with  the  Argentine  Republic.  In  the  Argentine  Republic  the 
democratic  development  of  the  country  since  1850  led  to  the 
early  development  of  primary  education.  Secondary  and 
university  instruction  received  but  little  attention.  It  is  true 
that  the  Argentine  educational  system  remained  in  a  primi- 
tive state  until  the  presidency  of  Sarmiento.  Nevertheless, 
even  up  to  his  time  more  attention  was  given  to  primary 
than  to  secondary  schools.  The  aristocratic  social  organiza- 
tion of  Chile,  on  the  other  hand,  led  to  the  concentration  of 
effort  on  the  development  of  the  secondary  schools.  As  a 
result,  Chile  possesses  the  best  "  liceos  *"  and  "  institutos  "  in 
South  America.  Unfortunately,  the  system  of  primary  edu- 
cation was  neglected  for  many  years  and  resulted  in  a  de- 
gree of  illiteracy  amongst  the  masses  which  made  impassable 
the  chasm  between  social  classes.  The  country  is  now  suf- 
fering from  the  results  of  this  long-continued  neglect.  With 
the  industrial  progress  of  the  country  the  economic  condi- 
tion of  the  laboring  classes  has  been  steadily  improving,  but, 

1  C.  J.  Ewald,  "  The  Students  of  Buenos  Aires,"  The  Student  World, 
January,   1909*  7f> 


THE   PROBLEM    OF   EDUCATION  89 

owing  to  their  ignorant  condition  and  total  lack  of  prepara- 
tion, the  higher  wages  have  in  many  cases  resulted  in  de- 
generation rather  than  in  progress.  The  primitive  wants  of 
the  agricultural  laborers  were  satisfied  by  the  lower  wage, 
and  the  surplus  has  been  used,  to  a  very  considerable  extent, 
in  an  increased  indulgence  in  spirituous  liquors.  Saving  is 
almost  unknown  to  the  Chilean  laborer,  so  that  the  increased 
wages  have  not  led  to  a  more  careful  provision  for  the  future 
of  the  family. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  increased  wages,  in  bettering  the 
situation  of  the  laborer,  have  also  given  rise  to  a  spirit  of  dis- 
content, a  desire  for  a  larger  share  in  production.  The  ig- 
norance of  the  laborer  makes  him  an  easy  prey  to  demagogic 
agitation. 

The  Chilean  educational  system  in  all  its  branches  is  na- 
tional in  scope  and  organization — that  is  to  say,  is  maintained 
by  the  national  treasury.  No  local  taxes  are  levied  for  edu- 
cational purposes,  and  the  local  authorities  have  no  voice  in 
the  administration  of  or  control  over  the  system.  .  .  . 

During  the  past  fifteen  years  the  leading  statesmen  of 
Chile  have  realized  that  this  neglect  of  primary  instruction 
is  a  real  menace  to  the  stability  and  orderly  development  of 
the  country.  The  social  organization  of  Chile  is  still  funda- 
mentally aristocratic.  Until  comparatively  recent  times  the 
bulk  of  the  population,  especially  the  agricultural  laborers, 
were  in  a  condition  of  peonage.  The  industrial  advance  of 
the  country,  together  with  the  rising  wage  scale,  has  pro- 
duced in  the  laboring  classes  a  consciousness  of  power.  The 
illiteracy  of  the  great  mass  of  the  laboring  classes  greatly 
increases  the  dangers  of  the  situation.  The  extension  of 
primary  instruction  has  therefore  become  one  of  the  condi- 
tions prerequisite  to  orderly  national  advance.  The  country 
must  now  prepare  itself  to  make  every  sacrifice  for  this 
purpose. 

In  1907  there  were  2,319  primary  schools,  with 
3,997  teachers  and  a  registration  of  197,174  pupils, 
with  an  average  attendance  of  121,176.  The  primary 
schools  and  pupils  have  doubled  since  1891.  The  popu- 
lation of  Chile  in  1907  was  3,249,279,  so  that  less  than 
one-sixteenth  of  the  total  population  was  in  primary 


90  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

schools,  as  compared  with  one-tenth  in  the  Argentine 
and  one-seventh  in  the  United  States. 

There  are  fifteen  normal  schools,  six  for  men  and 
nine  for  women.  The  total  matriculation  in  1907 
was  1,977,  with  an  average  attendance  of  1,609. 

There  were  39  "  liceos  "  or  secondary  schools  for 
boys,  with  a  total  registration  of  9,302  and  an  at- 
tendance of  7,896,  and  30  for  girls,  with  a  registra- 
tion of  4,810  and  an  attendance  of  3,839.  But  these 
"  liceos "  have  preparatory  or  primary  departments 
which  enrolled  about  half  of  the  above  numbers,  leav- 
ing the  other  half  as  genuine  secondary  students. 

Commercial  schools  have  been  established,  enroll- 
ing 1,453  pupils,  and  two  excellent  industrial  schools 
have  been  opened  in  Santiago,  one  for  boys  and  one 
for  girls.  There  are  372  private  primary  schools,  and 
in  1906  the  Government  granted  subsidies  to  44  pri- 
vate secondary   schools. 

University  instruction  has  been  more  fully  developed  than 
any  other  portion  of  the  educational  system.  ...  At  the 
present  time  the  University  [of  Chile]  offers  courses  in  law 
and  political  science,  medicine,  pharmacy,  dentistry,  engin- 
eering, architecture,  and  fine  arts.  The  pedagogical  institute 
also  forms  an  integral  part  of  the  university  organiza- 
tion. .  .  . 

The  description  of  higher  education  would  be  incomplete 
without  some  reference  to  the  Catholic  University  situated 
in  Santiago,  which  offers  courses  in  law,  civil  and  mining 
engineering,  architecture,  fine  arts,  and  agriculture.  The  law 
school  has  185  students ;  the  engineering  school,  396 ;  the 
agricultural  school,  12;  and  the  school  of  fine  arts,  55.  In 
all  of  these  departments  the  equipment  is  excellent,  and  the 
teaching  corps  has  been  selected  with  great  care. 

The  Catholic  University  occupies  an  unique  position.  Its 
main  supporters  are  the  members  of  the  conservative  party. 
Inasmuch  as  the  wealthier  elements  of  Chilean  society  are 
to  a  very  large  extent  affiliated  with  this  party,  the  donations 


THE    PROBLEM   OF   EDUCATION  9 1 

and  bequests  reach  a  large  total  each  year.  In  fact,  this  is 
one  of  the  few  instances  in  Latin  America  in  which  a  great 
national  institution  is  supported  exclusively  by  private  con- 
tributions. 

3.  Braail.  Higher  education  in  Brazil  can  be 
ranked  with  the  higher  education  offered  in  Argen- 
tina and  Chile,  but  there  is  a  woeful  lack  of  popular 
primary  education.  "  The  Statesman's  Year  Book  " 
for  1910  summarizes  the  educational  provision  which 
is  made  as  follows : 

Education  is  not  compulsory.  The  Republican  Govern- 
ment undertakes  to  provide  for  higher  or  university  in- 
struction within  the  Union,  leaving  the  provision  of  primary 
and  training  schools  to  the  State  Governments.  There  is, 
in  fact,  no  university  in  Brazil,  but  there  are  25  facul- 
ties which  confer  degrees.  In  Rio  de  Janeiro  are  also 
the  military  college,  the  preparatory  school  of  tactics,  and 
the  naval  school.  At  the  Capital  are  maintained  by  the  Fed- 
eral Government  a  school  for  the  blind  and  another  for  the 
deaf  and  dumb.  The  Federal  Government  maintains  also  a 
School  of  Arts  and  a  National  Institute  of  Music  in  the  Capi- 
tal, there  being  similar  academies  of  music  in  the  States  of 
Maranhao,  Para,  Sao  Paulo,  and  several  in  the  State  of  Rio 
de  Janeiro.  In  Manaos,  Bahia,  and  Curitiba  there  are  schools 
of  Fine  Arts.  There  are,  besides,  28  industrial  schools,  11 
agricultural  and  9  commercial  institutions  for  tuition.  There 
are  faculties  of  law  at  Recife,  Sao  Paulo,  Ceara,  Goyaz, 
Para,  Bahia,  Bello  Horizonte,  Porto  Alegre  and  Rio  de 
Janeiro  (2)  ;  faculties  of  medicine  at  Rio  de  Janeiro,  Bahia, 
and  Porto  Alegre;  colleges  of  pharmacy  at  Ouro  Preto, 
Belem,  Juiz  de  Fora,  and  Sao  Paulo ;  schools  of  odontology 
at  Rio  de  Janeiro,  Bello  Horizonte  and  also  attached  to  the 
colleges  of  medicine  and  pharmacy;  engineering  colleges  at 
Rio,  Ouro  Preto,  Bahia,  Recife,  Porto  Alegre,  and  Sao 
Paulo. 

There  existed  in  1907,  in  the  various  States,  7,089  public 
schools,  of  which  1,363  were  in  Minas  Geraes,  1,144  in  Rio 
Grande  do  Sul,  and  1,122  in  Sao  Paulo.  Besides  these  the 
municipalities  maintained   1,815  schools,  and  private  institu- 


92  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

tions  numbered  2,243,  In  the  Federal  capital  there  are  2 
preparatory  schools  controlled  by  the  Federal  Governor,  and 
40  private.  In  the  States  there  are  24  public  and  258  private 
establishments  of  a  similar  character.  For  teachers'  diplomas 
there  are  29  colleges  in  all  Brazil,  supported  by  the  Union, 
and  15  private.  In  recent  years  public  instruction  has  made 
great  progress. 

Among  the  oldest  and  best  known  schools  are  the 
Military  School,  the  Polytechnic  School,  and  the 
School  of  Fine  Arts  in  Rio.  There  is  great  disparity 
of  educational  development  in  the  different  states. 
Half  of  the  schools  of  the  republic  are  in  the  three 
states  of  Minas  Geraes,  Rio  Grande  do  Sul,  and  Sao 
Paulo.  The  state  of  Sao  Paulo  has  gained  greatly 
from  American  influence.  American  teachers  were 
imported  to  start  kindergarten  and  normal  schools 
and  Dr.  Lane,  president  of  Mackenzie  College,  the 
American  missionary  college  in  Sao  Paulo,  has  been 
a  constant  friend  and  helpful  adviser  of  Brazilian 
education. 

The  strongest  section  of  the  educational  system  in 
Brazil  is  the  gymnasium.  There  are  twenty  such 
state  institutions  and  some  of  them  contain  efficient 
and  well-equipped  teachers  and  according  to  Latin 
American  standards  do  good  work.  There  are  forty 
or  more  private  institutions  which  until  lately  were 
recognized  as  gymnasia  and  their  students  admitted 
to  the  professional  schools  without  examination,  but 
the  latest  educational  law  has  abolished  such  privi- 
leges for  all  institutions,  including  the  government 
gymnasia. 

There  are  notable  defects  to  be  overcome  in  Brazil's 
educational  scheme.  The  country  is  immense  and 
without  any  common  and  central  educational  organ- 
ization. 


m 


THE   PROBLEM    OF   EDUCATION  93 

In  Brazil  education  is  backward,  due,  in  large  measure,  to 
the  fact  that  it  is  one  of  the  interests  that  is  in  the  control 
of  the  states  rather  than  in  the  hands  of  the  Federal  author- 
ities. In  the  great  centers  like  the  capital,  there  is  real  in- 
terest in  art  and  letters,  but  the  doctrine  of  State  Rights,  as 
held  in  those  outlying  districts  where  the  people  themselves 
are  not  educated,  imposes  from  their  point  of  view  practical 
obstacles  to  educational  progress.  It  is  a  fact  that  in  this, 
the  greatest  of  the  South  American  Republics,  there  is  no 
real  university.^ 

Roman  Catholic  influence  is  increasing  again  in 
Brazilian  politics  and  education,  but  the  state  educa- 
tional system  is  still  religiously  neutral  if  not  posi- 
tively hostile.  The  result  is  that  the  great  mass  of 
Brazilian  students  are  not  only  alienated  from  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church  but  antagonistic  to  all  relig- 
ion. Mr.  Warner  of  Pernambuco  set  forth  this  situ- 
ation in  his  address  at  the  Rochester  Student  Volun- 
teer  Convention: 

Senhor  Argymiro  Galvao  was  at  one  time  lecturer  on 
philosophy  in  the  law  school  in  Sao  Paulo,  in  many  respects 
the  leading  law  school  in  Brazil.  One  of  his  lectures,  "  The 
Conception  of  God,"  was  published  as  a  tract  as  late  as  1906. 
I  quote  the  following  from  that  lecture :  "  The  Catholic  faith 
is  dead.  There  is  no  longer  confidence  in  Christian  dogma. 
The  supernatural  has  been  banished  from  the  domain  of 
science.  The  conquests  of  philosophy  have  done  away  with 
the  old  preconception  of  spirituality.  Astronomy,  with  La 
Place,  has  invaded  the  heavenly  fields  and  in  all  celestial 
space  there  has  not  been  found  a  kingdom  for  your  God. 
.  .  .  We  are  in  the  realm  of  realism.  The  reason  meditates 
not  on  theological  principles,  but  upon  facts  furnished  by 
experience.  God  is  a  myth.  He  has  no  reality,  He  is  not  an 
object  of  science.  .  .  .  Man  invented  gods  and  God  that  the 
world  might  be  ruled.  These  conceptions  resulted  from  his 
progressive  intelligence.     The  simple  spirit  refrains  from  all 

1  Marrion  Wilcox,  "  International  Cooperation  in  South  American 
Education,"  The  Student  World,  January,   1909,  sf. 


94  SOUTH   AMERICAN   PROBLEMS 

criticism  and  accepts  the  idea  of  God  without  resistance. 
The  cultured  spirit  repels  the  idea  in  virtue  of  its  inherent 
contradictions." 

Galvao  is  only  one  of  many  educators  in  the  best  schools 
of  Brazil  who  have  broken  with  the  Church,  and,  of  all  the 
hundreds  of  students  that  annually  sit  under  these  teachings, 
very  few  could  be  found  who  would  question  the  accuracy 
of  this  line  of  thought  or  seek  to  justify  the  Christian  faith. 

The  great  difficulty  that  confronts  the  laborer  in  this  field 
is  not  that  of  tearing  men  away  from  an  old  faith.  The 
great  majority  have  already  repudiated  their  old  faith.  The 
pity  of  it  is  that  they  think  they  have  repudiated  Christianity.^ 

4.  Uruguay.  In  Uruguay  primary  education  is  ob- 
ligatory. In  1908  there  were  1,781  primary  schools, 
223  urban,  and  1,588  rural.  In  1907  there  were  78,727 
pupils  enrolled,  with  an  average  attendance  of  58,215. 
The  boys  were  41,321  and  the  girls  37,406,  showing  a 
larger  proportion  of  girls  probably  than  in  any  other 
South  American  country,  unless  it  be  Argentina. 

The  one  university  of  the  country  is  in  Monte- 
video. It  has  faculties  of  law,  social  sciences,  medi- 
cine, mathematics,  commerce,  agriculture  and  veter- 
inary science.  There  are  also  a  preparatory  school 
and  other  institutions  for  secondary  education  with 
2,591  pupils.  The  university  in  1905  had  112  pro- 
fessors, 530  regular  students  and  661  pupils  receiv- 
ing secondary  education.  There  are  normal  schools, 
a  School  of  Arts  and  Trades,  a  Military  College  and  a 
number  of  Roman   Catholic  religious   seminaries. 

There  cannot  be  any  sharp  classification  of  South 
American  Republics,  but  with  Uruguay  as  borderland 
between,  we  pass  from  the  three  more  progressive 
nations  to  the  states  which  are  indisputably  backward 
in  education. 

*  "  Students  and  the  Present  Missionary  Crisis,"  327f. 


THE   PROBLEM    OF   EDUCATION  95 

5.  Peru.  The  educational  situation  in  Peru  is  set 
forth  in  a  paper  entitled  "  Public  Instruction  in  Peru," 
by  Dr.  Giesecke,  Rector  of  the  University  of  Cuzco, 
in  The  Annals  of  the  American  Academy  of  Political 
Science,  the  volume  entitled  "  Progress  in  Latin 
America."  ^  There  is  an  interesting  account  also  in 
Garland's  "  Peru  in  1906."  ^  Dr.  Giesecke  recog- 
nizes that  "  the  greatest  problem  confronting  Peru  to- 
day is  the  organization  and  extension  of  public  in- 
struction." He  points  out  three  "  obstacles  which 
impede  rapid  progress  to  the  best  interests  of  edu- 
cation." One  is  the  physiography  of  the  country 
— a  narrow  coast  region,  with  no  rainfall,  occupy- 
ing ten  per  cent  of  the  area,  a  high  mountainous 
region  with  poor  means  of  communication  occu- 
pying twenty-five  per  cent  of  the  country,  and  to  the 
east  an  immense  tropical  area  embracing  two-thirds 
of  the  republic,  little  known,  thinly  settled  and  in  part 
by  uncivilized  races.  A  second  obstacle  is  the  social 
organization  of  the  country,  the  great  mixture  of 
races.    The  third  obstacle  is  politics. 

The  constitution  of  Peru  guarantees  free  primary 
instruction  and  makes  it  obligatory.  The  following 
table  will  furnish  the  details: 

Do  not 
Receive       receive  Could  Could 

instruc-      instruc-  Could  not  Could  not 

tion  tion  read  read  write  write 

Boys    65,536     164,794    73,77^     156,609    50,615     179,726 

Girls    34,478     151,736    41,273     144,884    28,285     157,918 

Total     100,814    316,530  115,051     301,493  78,900    337,644 

A  census  of  school  children  within  the  age  limits  for  the 
purpose  of  primary  education  was  made  in  1902. 

According   to    racial   distribution   there   were   67,928   white 
^85-104.  2 126-150. 


96  SOUTH    AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

children,  198,674  indigenous  or  native  children,  144,298  mes- 
tizos and  5,644  blacks.  .  .  . 

The  teachers  in  the  primary  schools  are  women  in  the 
majority  of  cases.  Although  supposed  to  have  a  diploma, 
the  majority  of  teachers  are  not  so  provided.  Thus,  out  of 
2,944  teachers,  1,225  "len,  1,719  women,  two-thirds  did  not 
possess  a  diploma.^ 

There  are  three  normal  schools,  one  for  men  and 
two  for  women,  with  a  total  attendance  in  1907  of 
170.  A  total  of  $100,000  was  expended  on  these 
in  1906  for  salaries,  equipment,  etc.,  and  25  students 
were  graduated.  In  1908  the  total  revenues  available 
for  primary  education  were  $1,309,000.  In  1910  they 
were  less  than  $1,000,000. 

In  secondary  education  the  law  provides  for  two 
types  of  schools,  colegios  and  liceos.  There  ought, 
according  to  law,  to  be  loi  liceos.  There  is  not  one. 
There  were  28  colegios  in  1908  with  3,289  pupils. 
Three  were  for  girls,  with  a  total  of  200  pupils.  In 
1908  there  were  34  private  colegios  with  1,291  pupils 
under  the  care  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  or  pri- 
vate parties.  There  is  an  abundance  of  educational 
decrees  but  the  education  itself  is  of  a  most  imper- 
fect character,  with  a  wonderful  system  of  examining 
boards  which  are  paid  fees  for  every  student  sup- 
posed to  be  examined  regardless  of  whether  he  ap- 
pears for  examination.  In  1908  the  total  Government 
expenditure  on  the  secondary  schools  was  $310,000, 
most  of  which  went  to  salaries. 

The  income  of  the  four  universities  in  Lima,  Cuzco, 
Arequipa  and  Trujillo  amounted  in  1908  to  about  a 
third  of  a  million  dollars.  There  is  also  an  Engi- 
neering School,  an  Agricultural  College  and  a  School 

^  Annals  of  the  American  Academy  of  Political  Science,  "  Progress 
in   Latin  America." 


THE   PROBLEM    OF   EDUCATION  97 

of  Industrial  Arts,  all  located  in  Lima.  The  Univer- 
sity of  San  Marcos  in  Lima  was  founded  fifty-six 
years  before  the  settlement  of  Jamestown,  Va.,  and 
is  one  of  the  oldest  institutions  on  the  Western  Hem- 
isphere. The  University  became  famous  all  over 
South  America.  There  were  at  one  time  1,200  stu- 
dents. The  education  it  gave  was  scholastic  and  Ht- 
erary,  rather  than  practical.  Dr.  Villaran,  professor  in 
the  faculty  of  jurisprudence,  in  an  address  at  the  open- 
ing of  the  University  in  1900,  pointed  out  the  great 
weakness  of  education  in  Peru  at  the  present  day: 

We  still  maintain  the  same  ornamental  and  literary  edu- 
cation which  the  Spanish  governors  implanted  in  South 
America  for  political  purposes,  instead  of  an  intellectual 
training  capable  of  advancing  material  well-being,  which 
gives  brilliancy  to  cultivated  minds,  but  does  not  produce  prac- 
tical intelligence;  which  can  amuse  the  leisure  of  the  rich, 
but  does  not  teach  the  poor  how  to  work.  We  are  a  people 
possessed  by  the  same  mania  for  speaking  and  writing  as 
old  and  decadent  nations.  We  look  with  horror  upon  active 
professions  which  demand  energy  and  the  spirit  of  strife. 
Few  of  us  are  wiUing  to  endure  the  hardships  of  mining  or 
incur  the  risks  and  cares  of  manufacture  and  trade.  Instead 
we  like  tranquillity  and  security,  the  semi-repose  of  public 
office,  and  the  literary  professions  to  which  the  public  opin- 
ion of  our  society  urges  us.  Fathers  of  families  like  to  see 
their  sons  advocates,  doctors,  officeholders,  literati,  and  pro- 
fessors. Peru  is  much  like  China — the  promised  land  of 
functionaries   and  literati.^ 

"  With  the  native  tastes  thus  turning  to  the  unpro- 
ductive professions,"  the  United  States  Commissioner 
of  Education  remarks: 

It  is  not  surprising  to  learn  that  most  of  the  business  of 
Peru  is  carried  on  by  foreigners,   the   railroads,   the  mines, 

^  Report  of  United  States  Commissioner  of  Education,  1908,  Chapter 
V,  "  The  Modern  Aspect  of  Higher  Education  in  Spanish  American 
Countries,"    153. 


98  SOUTH    AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

the  manufactures,  and  commerce  being  largely  in  their  hands, 
the  reason  of  this  being,  as  Doctor  Villaran  repeats,  that 
the  old  aristocratic  idea  that  labor  is  dishonorable  still  pre- 
vailed very  largely  among  the  Peruvian  upper  classes.  No 
diescendant  of  a  noble  could  engage  in  any  lucrative  occu- 
pation ;  it  would  disgrace  him.  Labor  is  for  plebeians,  and 
active  commerce  is  hardly  less  disgraceful  than  a  manual 
trade.  To  this  feeling  the  difference  of  race  also  contrib- 
uted; all  the  whites  wished  to  be,  or  be  like,  counts  and 
marquises,  and  the  best  way  of  proving  their  nobility  was 
by  not  working.  The  Spaniards  who  came  to  America  be- 
came the  owners  of  ranches  or  mines,  but  did  not  work  them- 
selves. There  were  negro  slaves  and  Indians  to  do  the  ac- 
tual work.i 

The  whole  educational  system  of  Peru  is  merely  an 
appeal  for  a  proper  system  with  good  sense  and  per- 
manency in  it.  Some  capable  educational  advisers 
have  been  imported  but  they  have  been  largely  para- 
lyzed by  the  political  machinations  which  have  made 
education  a  mere  travesty,  as  in  most  South  American 
lands.  Snr.  Garland  says  quite  frankly :  "  The  army 
of  Peru  is  the  principal  educational  element  of  the 
people."  ^  He  has  in  mind  the  pitiful  inadequacy  of 
primary  education  and  the  instruction  given  in  mili- 
tary service  to  the  large  number  of  ignorant  conscript 
soldiers. 

6.  Colombia.  The  bulletin  of  the  Bureau  of  Amer- 
can  Republics  on  Colombia,  issued  in  1909,  says  with 
great  trustfulness  and  optimism: 

A  great  improvement  is  to  be  noted  in  the  extent  and  effi- 
ciency of  public  instruction  throughout  the  Republic,  not 
only  in  the  centres  of  population,  but  also  in  the  rural  dis- 
tricts, where  numerous  public  schools  have  been  established. 
Evening   manual   training   schools   are   conducted   in    various 

*  Report  of  United  States  Commissioner  of  Education,  1908,  Chap- 
ter V,    154. 

'  "  feru  in  1906,"  164. 


THE   PROBLEM    OF   EDUCATION  99 

parts  of  the  country,   and  this  system  of  public  instruction 
is  receiving  the  earnest  support  of  the  Government. 

There  is  an  immense  amount  of  education  pro- 
vided by  executive  decree  in  Colombia  which 
is  never  provided  in  any  more  tangible  way.  The 
actual  educational  conditions,  while  probably  better 
than  in  some  other  South  American  lands,  are  pitiful. 

By  the  Concordat  public  education  is  under  the 
domination  of  the  Church.  Articles  12,  13  and  14  of 
the    Concordat   declare : 

In  universities,  colleges,  schools  and  other  centres  of  in- 
struction public  education  and  instruction  shall  be  organized 
and  directed  in  conformity  with  the  dogmas  and  morals  of 
the  Catholic  religion.  Religious  instruction  is  obligatory  in 
these  centres,  and  the  pious  practices  of  the  Catholic  religion 
shall  be  observed  in  them.  Consequently  in  such  centres  of 
education,  the  respective  diocesan  authorities,  either  them- 
selves or  by  means  of  special  delegates,  shall  exercise  the 
right  of  inspection  and  revision  of  text-books,  in  all  that  re- 
fers to  religion  and  morals.  The  Archbishop  of  Bogota  shall 
designate  the  books  that  are  to  serve  as  texts  of  religion  and 
morals  in  the  universities;  and  with  the  object  of  securing 
uniformity  of  instruction  in  the  said  matters,  this  Prelate  in 
accord  with  the  other  diocesan  authorities,  shall  elect  the 
text-books  for  the  other  establishments  of  official  instruction. 
The  Government  shall  impede  the  propagation  of  ideas  con- 
trary to  Catholic  dogma  and  to  the  respect  and  veneration 
due  to  the  Church  in  the  instruction  given  in  literary  and 
scientific,  as  well  as  in  all  other  branches  of  education.  In 
case  that  the  instruction  in  religion  and  morals,  in  spite  of 
the  orders  and  preventions  of  the  Government,  shall  not  be 
conformed  to  Catholic  doctrines,  the  diocesan  authorities  can 
deprive  the  professors  and  teachers  of  their  right  to  give  in- 
struction in  these  matters. 

All  this  means  that  there  is  no  adequate  education 
of  any  grade,  and  that  what  there  is  is  inferior.  Now 
and  then  as  one  rides  through  the  villages  or  towns 


100  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

he  hears  the  united  murmur  of  a  school  at  work 
on  memorizing,  but  there  is  no  real  attempt  to 
provide  primary  education  for  the  people  and  most  of 
the  secondary  education  is  a  farce.  There  is  not  one 
school  of  thorough  work  and  of  the  first  order  in  all 
Colombia.  There  are  no  normal  schools  for  the  train- 
ing of  teachers.  The  report  of  the  German  rector 
of  the  Escuela  Nacional  de  Comercio  in  Bogota  pre- 
sented in  1909  to  the  Minister  of  Public  Instruc- 
tion, presents  the  view  of  an  intelligent  and  capable 
man  who  came  to  Bogota  from  educational  work  in 
Ecuador  and  Chile :  ''  Primary  and  secondary  insti- 
tutions here,"  he  says,  **  appear  to  me  distinctly  in- 
ferior to  those  of  the  other  countries  which  I  have 
known."  We  visited  the  best  school  in  Bogota  which 
was  not  dominated  by  the  Church,  the  Universidad 
Republicana.  It  had  240  students,  75  of  whom  were 
boarders,  who  paid  $16  a  month,  while  day  pupils  paid 
$10  a  year.  It  was  the  most  dirty,  forlorn,  run-down- 
at-the-heels,  unorganized  school  I  have  ever  seen. 
And  yet  this  is  higher  education  in  Colombia.  Neither 
religion  nor  ethics  can  be  taught  by  such  education. 
It  is  not  honest  education.  How  can  it  be  religious? 
It  is  not  an  education  in  cleanness.  How  can  it  be 
ethical?  There  is  need  and  there  is  opportunity  for 
clean,  thorough,  high  principled  educational  work,  to 
set  a  standard  for  both  the  Government  and  the  Ro- 
man Catholic  Church.  There  are  no  reliable  school 
statistics.  There  are  said  to  be  2,987  public  schools 
with  200,965  pupils. 

Nearly    all    the   schools    for    secondary   education, 
maintained  or  assisted  by  the  nation, 

are  entrusted  to  religious  corporations  of  the  Catholic  Church. 
There  used  to  be  in  the  capital  faculties  of  letters  and  phil- 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  EDUCATION     lOI 

osophy;  of  jurisprudence  and  political  sciences;  of  medicine 
and  natural  sciences ;  and  of  mathematics  and  engineering. 
Of  these  only  the  faculty  of  medicine  and  natural  sciences 
is  now  open.  For  the  working  class  there  is  a  school  of 
arts  and  trades  directed  by  the  Salesian  Fathers.  There  are 
three  schools  or  colleges  open,  under  religious  orders,  and 
the  School  of  Fine  Arts  has  just  been  reopened.^ 

The  secondary  schools  under  some  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  orders  are  efficient  schools  of  their  kind 
and  represent  the  best  educational  advantages  obtain- 
able in  Colombia. 

7.  Ecuador.  Prior  to  the  liberal  revolt  of  Ecuador 
from  the  Church  of  Rome  in  1895,  education  was  un- 
der the  control  of  the  Roman  CathoHc  Church.  The 
school  laws  allowed  none  but  Catholics  to  teach  in 
any  kind  of  school  or  even  give  private  lessons.  After 
the  liberal  upheaval  a  Methodist  Presiding  Elder  was 
commissioned  to  organize  a  new  system  of  normal 
schools.  All  that  the  change  of  conditions  promised 
has  not  been  fulfilled,  but  there  has  been  marked  im- 
provement in  the  public  school  system.  Primary  edu- 
cation is  free  and  theoretically  obligatory.  In  Quito 
there  is  a  university  with  36  professors  and  216  stu- 
dents, and  there  are  university  bodies  in  Cuenca  and 
Guayaquil.  There  are  in  the  country  9  schools  for 
higher  education,  35  secondary  and  1,088  primary 
schools.  The  total  number  of  teachers  is  1,498  and 
of  pupils  68,380.  There  are  commercial  and  techni- 
cal schools  in  Quito  and  Guayaquil  and  several  nor- 
mal schools.  According  to  the  bulletin  of  the  Inter- 
national Bureau  of  American  Republics  on  Ecuador 
for  1909,  the  educational  equipment  of  Quito  is  "  five 
colleges  (one  of  them  a  military  college),  two  normal 

*  "  Statesman's  Year  Book,"  1910. 


102  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

institutes  (one  of  which  is  for  girls),  a  university, 
a  medical  school,  two  seminaries,  a  theological  school, 
an  institute  of  science,  a  school  of  arts  and  trades, 
three  schools  for  young  women  and  three  kinder- 
gartens." ^ 

8.  Venezuela.  Public  instruction  was  reorganized 
by  an  executive  decree  of  July  4,  1903,  according  to 
the  provisions  of  which  decree  public  instruction  con- 
sists of  the  following  eight  branches: 

Primary  schools,  secondary  schools,  normal  schools, 
national  colleges,  engineering  school,  universities, 
academies,  polytechnic  school. 

In  the  Federal  district  100  public  schools*  are  estab- 
lished, and  in  the  States  of  the  Union  600.  Instruc- 
tion is  imparted  in  said  institutions  according  to  the 
provisions  of  the  aforesaid  code  of  public  instruction. 

Primary  instruction  is  divided  into  compulsory  and 
voluntary  education,  both  imparted  free.  Compul- 
sory primary  education  is  imposed  by  law  on  all  Ven- 
ezuelans of  either  sex.^ 

This  is  the  situation  on  paper.  According  to  the 
"Statesman's  Year  Book,"  1911,  there  are  now  1,217 
elementary  schools  with  26,988  pupils. 

The  volume  on  Venezuela  in  1904,  issued  by  the 
International  Bureau  of  the  American  Republics,  re- 
ported 36  national  colleges  with  131  professors  and 
1,457  students.  The  Bureau's  bulletin  on  Venezuela 
in  1909  states  that  the  total  number  of  federal,  mu- 
nicipal and  private  schools  in  the  country  is  1,525,  of 
secondary  institutions  88,  and  of  higher  institutions  2, 
the  University  of  Caracas  and  the  University  of  Las 
Andes.  On  June  30,  1908,  a  total  enrollment  of 
35,777  pupils  was  reported  in  a  population  of  2,664,- 

*"  Ecuador,    1909,"    15.  *"  Venezuela,   1904,"  503. 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   EDUCATION  IO3 

241  and  the  total  amount  collected  for  school  pur- 
poses in  1908  was  $776,000. 

9.  Bolivia.  Public  instruction  in  Bolivia  is  divided 
into  primary,  secondary  and  superior.  Primary  edu- 
cation is  gratuitous  and  as  in  Peru  is  theoretically 
compulsory.  By  law  primary  education  is  under  the 
care  of  the  municipal  councils.  In  1901  there  were, 
according  to  official  data,  733  primary  schools  in  the 
whole  country,  with  41,587  pupils  and  938  teachers, 
the  appropriation  for  the  support  of  the  schools  being 
140,000  bolivianos,  or  about  $56,000. 

In  secondary  education  there  were  in  1901  13  col- 
leges with  115  professors  and  2,553  pupils,  with  an 
appropriation  of  100,000  bolivianos  or  $40,000.  In 
1900  the  statistics  gave  eight  official  colleges,  four 
seminaries,  one  religious  school  and  four  private 
lyceums.  None  of  these  gave  the  equivalent  of  the 
education  given  in  a  first-class  American  high  school, 
yet  they  offered  the  degree  of  B.A.  and  prepared  their 
students  for  the  professional  courses  of  the  univer- 
sities. 

Superior  instruction  was  given  in  professional 
courses  in  law,  medicine  and  theology.  There  are  in- 
stitutions known  as  universities  at  La  Paz,  Chuqui- 
saca,  Cochabamba,  Potosi,  Tarija,  Santa  Cruz  and 
Oruro.  All  these  give  law  courses;  the  first  three 
give  medicine  also  and  theology  is  given  at  these  three 
and  at  Tarija.  There  were,  in  1901,  677  pupils  in 
superior  institutions. 

There  are  also  two  commercial  schools  at  Sucre 
and  Trinidad,  one  military  school  at  La  Paz,  one 
agricultural  school  at  Umala,  an  engineering  and  min- 
ing school  at  Oruro  and  a  school  of  painting  at 
Cochabamba. 


104  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

10.  Paraguay.  At  the  bottom  of  the  list  educa- 
tionally comes  Paraguay.  There,  too,  education  is 
compulsory  on  paper.  In  1901  there  were  two  nor- 
mal schools,  15  high  schools,  245  primary  schools, 
107  private  schools  and  one  agricultural  school,  with 
a  total  attendance  of  25,247  out  of  a  population  of 
631,347.  The  total  amount  appropriated  for  the  De- 
partment of  Public  Works  and  Public  Instruction 
in  1910  was  $453,984.  There  were  five  so-called  col- 
leges and  a  national  university  established  in  1890  at 
Asuncion,  declared  by  its  founder  to  be  **  a  first-class 
establishment,  ranking  as  high  as  any  other  of  its 
kind."  It  offers  a  six  years'  course  in  law,  social 
sciences  and  medicine,  with  courses  in  pharmacy  and 
botanical  training. 

This  survey  has  already  indicated  the  strength  and 
weakness  of  education  in  South  America. 

I.  There  is  much  good  work  done,  but  in  general 
the  school  systems  are  showy,  top-heavy,  theoretical. 
As  the  statistics  already  quoted  indicate,  a  great  army 
of  professors  is  employed  over  a  comparatively  small 
body  of  students.  A  great  deal  of  money  is  spent  on 
appearance  but  solid  work  is  rare.  All  this  is  part  of 
the  situation  to  be  met.    As  Mr.  Wilcox  says: 

It  is  absolutely  necessary  to  realize  certain  characteristics 
of  the  Latin  American  mind  in  order  to  understand  present 
conditions  in  education  in  South  America.  In  these  matters, 
our  friends  in  the  Southern  Republics  are  not  self-reliant 
but  dependent,  and  their  attainments  are  apt  to  be  showy 
rather  than  substantial.  They  themselves  characterize  their 
enthusiasms  as  "  fire  in  straw,"  blazing  up  quickly  but  not 
usually  supplying  force  for  sustained  effort.  As  for  strength 
of  intellectual  fiber,  that  is  always  and  everywhere  a  ques- 
tion of  character.  In  Chile,  for  example,  native  boys  and 
young  Englishmen  work  side  by  side  in  the  same  business 
houses.    The  former  quite  outstrip  the  latter,  showing  more 


THE    PROBLEM    OF   EDUCATION  IO5 

ability  while  they  are  still  quite  young,  but  falling  behind  in 
the  long  race  simply  because  they  have  not  learned  lessons  of 
self-reliance  and  self-control.  When  a  solid  foundation 
of  good  habits  shall  take  the  place  of  irregularity,  self- 
indulgence,  and  the  vices  that  are  too  often  acquired  in  the 
South  American  home  and  in  school,  the  latent  talent  of 
these  peoples  will  command  world-wide  attention. ^ 

At  the  same  time  it  is  to  be  remembered  that,  as 
Mr.  Warner  says  of  the  Brazilian  students: 

We  are  not  dealing,  as  some  believe,  with  men  of  inferior 
intellect.  In  linguistic  ability  especially,  it  is  probable  that 
no  students  excel  the  Latins.  It  is  no  uncommon  thing  to 
meet  an  educated  Brazilian  audience  which  is  capable  of  ap- 
preciating fully  a  literary  program  comprising,  besides  num- 
bers in  Portuguese,  selections  from  Italian,  Spanish,  French, 
English,  and  German  literature.  In  such  an  audience  many 
are  able  to  speak  as  well  as  understand  several  of  these  lan- 
guages. With  so  many  avenues  of  intercourse  and  such 
mental  agility,  it  is  not  surprising  that  the  Brazilian  student 
is  extremely  sensitive  to  any  influence  that  may  be  brought 
to  bear  upon  him.^ 

What  is  true  of  the  Brazilian  is  true  of  others.  The 
South  American  young  men  are  quick,  alert,  respon- 
sive. They  are  deserving  of  all  our  friendship  and 
assistance.  But  they  need  moral  bottom,  character, 
stability — just  the  qualities  which  only  robust,  ethi- 
cal, open-minded  and  fearless  reHgious  principle  can 
give  them. 

2.  In  addition  to  the  weaknesses  pointed  out  in  the 
detailed  survey  just  made,  there  are  three  grave  gen- 
eral deficiencies  which  Professor  Rowe  sets  forth  in 
his  paper  already  quoted  on  "  Educational  Progress 
in  the  Argentine  Republic  and  Chile." 

*  Marrion  Wilcox,  "  International  Cooperation  in  South  American 
Education,"    The  Student    World,   January,    1909. 

2  J.  H.  Warner,  "  Religion  Among  Brazilian  Students,"  The  Student 
World,   January,    1909,    lof. 


I06  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

The  most  serious  defect  of  educational  organization  in  the 
Argentine  Republic,  Brazil,  Chile,  and  Peru  is  this  tendency 
to  impose  the  same  course  of  study  on  every  boy  and  girl, 
quite  irrespective  of  their  tastes  or  subsequent  vocations. 
From  the  primary  school  to  the  close  of  the  high-school 
course  not  the  slightest  freedom  of  choice  is  permitted.  .  .  . 

The  course  of  study  is  open  to  much  criticism,  largely  be- 
cause of  its  rigidity  and  complexity,  but  its  most  serious 
defect  is  that  it  encourages  a  great  number  of  young  men, 
best  fitted  for  commercial  or  industrial  life,  to  enter  callings 
for  which  they  have  no  real  capacity.  .  .  .  The  ambition  of 
almost  every  family  in  these  countries  is  to  have  their  sons 
enter  the  legal  or  the  medical  profession,  which  has  resulted 
in  a  degree  of  overcrowding  unknown  in  any  other  portion 
of  the  civilized  world.  .  .  . 

Industrial  enterprises  requiring  constant  application  and  as- 
siduous attention  are  in  the  hands  of  foreigners.  .  .  . 

Another  lesson  of  American  experience  of  much  im- 
portance to  the  Latin  American  countries  is  the  necessity  of 
training  a  corps  of  professional  teachers  for  the  "  liceos,"  or 
high  schools.  Chile  is  the  only  country  that  has  made  an 
important  move  in  this  direction.  In  the  Argentine  Republic 
the  teaching  corps  of  the  high  schools,  or  "  colegios,"  as 
they  are  called,  is  made  up  of  practicing  lawyers  and  physi- 
cians. The  result  is  that  there  is  an  almost  total  absence  of 
that  personal  contact  between  pupil  and  teacher  which  is  the 
distinguishing  characteristic   of   our   educational  system.  .  .  . 

A  third  lesson  of  American  experience  of  incalculable  value 
to  the  Latin  American  Republics  is  the  necessity  of  giving 
greater  attention  to  the  education  of  women.  ...  In  many 
respects  the  influence  of  women  is  greater  than  in  the  United 
States,  owing  to  the  fact  that  in  the  Latin  American  coun- 
tries the  training  of  children  is  left  almost  exclusively  to  the 
mother.  That  fellowship  and  companionship  between  father 
and  sons  so  characteristic  of  family  life  in  the  United  States 
is  almost  totally  lacking.  The  mother's  directing  influence 
is  almost  if  not  quite  exclusive.  It  is  only  when  the  sons 
have  reached  an  age  at  which  it  becomes  necessary  to  choose 
a  profession  or  calling  that  the  father's  authority  becomes 
prominent.  .  .  . 

The  tendency  to  keep  the  young  woman  as  far  removed  as 


THE  PROBLEM   OF  EDUCATION  I07 

possible  from  contact  with  real  life,  the  atmosphere  of  arti- 
ficiality with  which  she  is  surrounded,  together  with  the  in- 
adequate and  in  many  respects  superficial  education  which 
she  receives,  react  unfavorably  on  the  character  and  stability 
of  Latin  American  society.  The  young  woman  enters  upon 
the  duties  of  wifehood  and  motherhood  with  either  a  false 
or  totally  inadequate  idea  of  social  and  economic  conditions. 
An  exaggerated  spirit  of  indulgence  toward  children,  an  ac- 
ceptance almost  without  question  of  the  idea  that  the  sons 
must  sow  their  wild  oats,  and  the  consequent  lack  of  disci- 
pline which  this  involves,  tend  to  develop  a  generation  but 
poorly  equipped  with  the  qualities  of  self-control,  determina- 
tion, and  continuous  application  so  necessary  to  the  develop- 
ment of  a  vigorous  race. 

Furthermore,  the  idea  of  preparing  young  women  of  the 
middle  class  to  earn  their  livelihood  is  but  beginning  to  find 
acceptance  in  the  countries  of  Latin  America.^ 

3.  The  problem  of  providing  higher  education 
which  shall  be  thorough  and  which  will  produce  men 
of  character  is  underlain  by  the  problem  of  true  popu- 
lar primary  education.  Many  of  the  republics  pro- 
vide by  law  for  compulsory  education,  but  the  provi- 
sion is  a  farce.  Bolivia  does  so.  Out  of  a  total 
school  population  between  five  and  fourteen  years 
of  approximately  400,000,  there  were  41,587  in  school. 
Peru  does  so.  Out  of  a  total  primary  school  popu- 
lation between  five  and  fourteen  years  of  approxi- 
mately 700,000,  there  were  100,814  in  school.  In  the 
United  States,  as  we  have  seen,  out  of  a  school  popu- 
lation between  five  and  fourteen  years  of  16,954,357, 
there  were  10,761,721  in  school. 

The  issue  for  June  23,  1909,  of  O  Estado  de  Sao 
Paulo,  the  leading  newspaper  in  Sao  Paulo,  con- 
tained a  letter  from  a  correspondent  bemoaning  the 
deHnquency  of  Brazil  in  the  education  of  her  people. 

*  Report  of  Commissioner  of  Education  for  1909,  325,  326,  327. 


I08  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

In  Brazil,  he  said,  only  28  out  of  each  1,000  of  the 
population  were  in  school ;  in  Paraguay,  47 ;  in  Chile, 
53 ;  in  Uruguay,  79 ;  in  Argentina,  96.  In  the  Argen- 
tine, out  of  a  population  of  6,200,000,  597,203  or 
9.632  per  cent  were  in  school.  In  Brazil,  out  of  19,- 
910,646  (his  figures)  only  565,942  or  2.842  per  cent. 
In  the  United  States,  19  per  cent  of  the  entire  popu- 
lation are  in  school;  in  Germany,  over  16  per  cent; 
in  Japan  over  12  per  cent.  In  other  words,  about 
four  times  as  large  a  proportion  of  the  American 
population  are  in  school  as  of  the  entire  population 
of  South  America. 

The  result;  in  popular  illiteracy  is  just  what  would 
inevitably  result  from  such  neglect.  The  facts  can 
be  made  real  to  us  by  home  comparison  better  than  in 
any  other  way.  The  average  illiteracy  in  the  Ameri- 
can nation  is  ten  per  cent  and  a  fraction  over.  If  we 
include  all  the  children  under  ten  years  of  age  who 
are  out  of  school,  we  have  a  total  illiteracy  in 
the  United  States  of  about  sixteen  per  cent.  Accord- 
ing to  the  last  official  census,  the  proportion  of  illit- 
eracy in  the  Republic  of  Brazil  was  eighty-five  per 
cent,  including  children  under  six  years  of  age.  A 
Brazilian  writer  in  O  Estado  de  Sao  Paulo,^  bitterly 
speaks  of  his  country  as  Analphabetolandia  and  de- 
clares :  "  There  can  be  no  doubt  about  it  but  that  in 
a  short  time  Analphabetolandia  will  be  the  first  na- 
tion— of  Africa."  In  the  Argentine  Republic  the  illit- 
eracy is  fifty  per  cent  among  those  over  six  years  of 
age;  in  Chile,  according  to  the  official  census,  it  is 
sixty  per  cent ;  in  Bolivia,  according  to  the  "  States- 
man's Year  Book,"  it  is  eighty  per  cent  among  those 
over  ten  years  of  age.     The  most  illiterate  state  in 

^  Issue  of  February  13,  1910. 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  EDUCATION     I09 

the  United  States  is  the  state  of  Louisiana,  which  is 
so  iUiterate  because  of  the  great  mass  of  ignorant 
negro  citizens.  The  average  illiteracy  of  the  state  of 
Louisiana  is  thirty-eight  per  cent.  In  other  words, 
Louisiana,  charging  against  it  all  the  ignorance  of  its 
great  black  population,  has  less  illiteracy  than  any 
country  in  South  America.  And  even  the  most  igno- 
rant part  of  Louisiana — the  negroes — averages  only 
sixty-one  per  cent  of  illiteracy,  which  makes  the  dark- 
est section  of  the  United  States — these  negroes  of 
Louisiana — as  literate  as  many  of  the  South  American 
republics,  in  spite  of  the  high  intelligence  of  their  lead- 
ing classes,  who  cannot  bear  the  weight  of  the  great 
popular  ignorance.  We  can  put  it  more  concretely  in 
one  simple  parallel.  In  the  year  1901,  out  of  every 
one  hundred  conscripts  in  the  Chilean  army  seventy 
were  illiterate.  In  1904,  out  of  every  twenty-five  hun- 
dred recruits  for  the  German  army,  one  was  illiterate. 
It  will  bring  it  to  us  a  little  more  directly  to  put  the 
illustrations  in  yet  another  concrete  form.  The  Ar- 
gentine is  one  of  the  most  intelligent  and  advanced 
countries  in  South  America.  Compare  it  for  a  mo- 
ment with  the  state  of  New  York,  which  is  just  about 
equivalent  to  it  in  population.  In  the  Argentine  there 
are  15,000  school  teachers;  in  the  state  of  New  York 
there  are  40,000.  In  the  Argentine  there  are  550,000 
pupils  in  the  schools ;  in  the  state  of  New  York  there 
are  1,400,000.  With  the  same  population  there  are 
three  times  as  many  teachers  and  three  times  as  many 
students  in  the  schools  in  the  state  of  New  York  as 
there  are  in  the  whole  of  the  Argentine,  and  the  aver- 
age illiteracy  of  the  state  of  New  York  is  five  per 
cent  and  the  average  illiteracy  of  the  Argentine  Re- 
public is  fifty  per  cent.    Or  compare,  once  again,  the 


no  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

republic  of  Bolivia  with  the  state  of  Minnesota. 
The  population  is  about  the  same.  The  conglom- 
erate conditions  of  the  populations  are  not  unlike. 
There  is  just  about  as  large  an  immigrant  population 
in  Minnesota  as  there  is  an  Indian  population  in 
Bolivia.  Compare  the  educational  situation  of  the 
two  states:  eighty  per  cent  of  illiteracy  in  Bolivia, 
four  per  cent  of  illiteracy  in  the  state  of  Minnesota; 
1,300  teachers  in  Bolivia,  14,000  teachers  in  Minne- 
sota; 50,000  pupils  in  Bolivia,  438,000  in  the  state  of 
Minnesota.  Or  compare  the  republic  of  Venezuela 
with  the  state  of  Iowa,  two  sections  of  about  the 
same  population:  1,700  teachers  in  Venezuela,  30,000 
teachers  in  Iowa;  36,000  pupils  in  the  whole  republic 
of  Venezuela,  and  562,000  in  the  one  state  of  Iowa. 
Kansas  has  a  population  of  1,500,000  in  round  num- 
bers. The  six  republics  of  Venezuela,  Ecuador,  Peru, 
BoHvia,  Paraguay  and  Uruguay  combined  have  a 
population  of  12,000,000  or  eight  times  that  of  Kan- 
sas. Yet  Kansas  has  11,258  school  teachers  or  about 
2,000  more  than  all  these  six  republics  and  has  just 
about  the  same  number  of  children  in  school.  Kansas 
has  one-fourth  of  her  population  in  school.  These 
repubHcs  have  one-thirtieth  of  theirs.  If  it  is  said 
that  we  have  been  picking  out  the  darkest  sections 
of  South  America  and  contrasting  them  with  the 
brightest  sections  of  the  United  States,  one  could 
reply  that  Argentina  is  one  of  the  brightest  parts  of 
South  America;  but  let  us  take,  on  the  same 
level,  New  Mexico  and  Paraguay.  New  Mexico  has 
only  two-thirds  of  the  population  of  Paraguay.  It 
has  ten  per  cent  more  pupils  in  its  schools  and  twenty 
per  cent  more  public  school  teachers. 

Consider  further  the  money  spent  on  educational 


THE   PROBLEM    OF    EDUCATION  III 

systems  here  and  there.  The  tuition  fees  for  Cohimbia 
University  for  one  year  have  amounted  to  more  than 
the  whole  sum  which  the  Chilean  government  was 
spending  in  its  budget  on  the  education  of  three  and  a 
quarter  million  people.  The  income  of  Cornell  Uni- 
versity for  four  months  expended  on  the  work  of  the 
university  has  been  larger  than  the  expenditure  of  the 
Peruvian  government  on  the  education  of  three  and  a 
half  million  people  for  a  whole  year.  Yale  University 
represents  annually  twice  the  educational  outlay  of 
Venezuela.  The  school  revenues  of  the  state  of 
Minnesota  alone  for  the  fiscal  year  1910-11  were 
$14,318,528,  far  more  than  all  the  west  coast  repub- 
lics combined  spent  on  education  and  twice  the 
amount  expended  by  Argentina.  The  education  bud- 
get of  New  York  City  for  1912,  amounting  to  $30,- 
379,000,^  exceeds  the  combined  education  budgets  of 
all  the  South  American  republics.  Not  one  South 
American  republic  with  all  its  wealth  and  ample  time 
for  development  has  an  educational  system  as  effi- 
cient as  that  which  the  United  States  has  built  up  in 
the  PhiHppines  in  ten  years. 

Or  pass  by  the  tedium  of  detailed  illustration  and 
consider  the  total  educational  effort  of  the  whole  con- 
tinent. All  South  America  together  has  just  about 
the  population  of  Japan.  In  South  America  there 
are  43,000  school  teachers;  in  Japan  there  are  133,- 
000.  In  all  South  America  there  are  two  million  pu- 
pils in  the  schools;  in  Japan  there  are  six  millions. 
In  other  words,  comparing  Japan  with  the  whole  of 
South  America,  there  are  three  times  as  many 
teachers  and  three  times  as  many  pupils  in  its  schools 
as  in  all  the  republics  of  South  America  combined. 

*  The  Evening  Sun,  New  York,  October  25,  1911. 


112  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

We  have  scores  of  mission  schools  in  the  one  Em- 
pire of  Japan.  If  our  missionary  educational  institu- 
tions are  justified,  as  they  are  abundantly,  in  Japan, 
they  are  three-fold  more  justified,  on  the  face  of 
these  facts  themselves,  in  the  great  continent  of  Latin 
America.  If  we  owe  our  help  to  Japan,  we  owe  it 
also  to  our  neighboring  continent,  bound  to  us  by  in- 
numerable friendly  bonds,  and  seeking  our  brotherly 
help  in  dealing  with  a  great  need.  It  has  some  good 
institutions  and  higher  educational  systems,  but  it 
welcomes  and  desires  all  friendly  aid  in  shaping  char- 
acter and  in  meeting  the  deep  intellectual  require- 
ments of  its  great  masses. 


CHAPTER   IV 

THE  ROMAN  CHURCH  AND  THE  PROBLEM 
OF   RELIGIOUS    LIBERTY 

I.  The  founding  and  development  of  the  Roman 
Church  in  South  America. 

The  religious  motive  played  as  large  a  part  in  the 
discovery  and  settlement  of  the  New  World  as  the 
motive  of  political  expansion  or  of  commercial  greed. 
Ferdinand  and  Isabella  v^ere  animated  by  a  deeper 
and  more  sincere  desire  to  extend  Christ's  kingdom 
than  to  enlarge  their  own.  They  included  this  end  in 
their  plans  and  required  of  the  leaders  whom  they 
sent  out  that  they  should  not  use  violence  in  the  con- 
version of  the  heathen  but  should  win  them  by  per- 
suasion alone.  After  each  of  his  voyages  Columbus 
was  asked  by  the  Queen  to  describe  what  had  been 
done  for  the  conversion  of  the  Indians.  The  Portu- 
guese discoverers  left  a  line  of  religious  names  up  and 
down  the  coast  of  Brazil  and  Columbus  called  the 
first  land  which  he  found  San  Salvador  in  gratitude 
to  God  for  his  safety.  A  "  Te  Deum  "  was  chanted. 
Shortly  after  the  planting  of  the  royal  standard,  a 
rude  cross  was  set  up.  The  seven  natives  whom  he 
took  back  to  Spain  were  baptized,  with  the  Spanish 
monarchs  as  sponsors.  This  was  the  first  fruit  of  the 
extensive  harvest  which  Rome  was  to  reap  in  the 
new  world. 

"3 


114  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

Pizarro,  on  his  voyage  to  Peru,  was  required  to  take  priests 
or  monks  in  every  vessel.  This  became  the  fixed  rule  for 
all  expeditions  to  America.  Velasquez  wrote  to  Cortes  to 
remember  that  the  chief  purpose  of  his  expedition  was  the 
conversion  of  the  natives,  "  He  was  to  take  the  most  care- 
ful care  to  omit  nothing  which  might  redound  to  the  service 
of  God."  The  principal  standard  of  Cortes  was  of  black 
velvet,  embroidered  with  gold,  and  emblazoned  with  a  red 
cross  amidst  flames  of  blue  and  white,  with  this  motto  in 
Latin  beneath :  "  Friends,  let  us  follow  the  cross,  and  under 
this  sign,  if  we  have  faith,  we  shall  conquer." 

Cortes  himself  exhorted  his  troops  to  rely  on  God,  who 
had  never  deserted  the  Spaniard  in  his  fight  with  the  heathen. 
Mass  was  said  and  the  expedition  sailed  under  the  joint  pro- 
tection of  St.  Peter  and  St.  James.  This  was  the  spirit  of 
the  conquerors.  They  might  lead  very  immoral  lives ;  they 
might  be  guilty  of  avarice  and  untold  deeds  of  cruelty  and 
bloodshed;  but  they  were  devout  Catholics,  upheld  by  a 
strong,  if  superstitious,  faith  in  the  righteousness  of  their 
cause.  They  were  soldiers  of  the  Cross,  fighting  in  a  holy 
war;  and  their  careers  form  the  last  chapter  of  medieval 
chivalry.  1 

The  Papal  bull  of  1493  which  divided  the  new 
world  between  Portugal  and  Spain  enjoined  "  the 
sending  out  of  missionaries  apt  to  teach  and  of  vir- 
tuous life,  who  should  convert  the  natives  in  all  lands 
to  be  discovered."  And  this  same  year,  as  Brown  has 
summarized  the  story  of  the  beginnings: 

Bernardo  Boil,  first  apostolic  vicar  to  the  New  World, 
landed  in  Haiti  as  superior  of  a  band  of  twelve  missionaries, 
one  of  whom  was  Marchena,  the  friend  of  Columbus.  Mar- 
chena  built,  in  the  town  of  Isabella,  a  rude  church,  the  first 
in  the  New  World.  By  1505  the  Franciscans  of  Haiti,  Cuba 
and  Jamaica  had  so  increased  in  numbers  that  they  united 
to  form  the  province  of  Santa  Cruz.  .  .  . 

In  1514,  the  bishopric  of  Darien,  the  first  on  the  mainland, 
was  erected;  and  that  same  year  Las  Casas  baptized  a  thou- 
sand children  on  a  trip  through  Cuba.  .  .  . 
*  Brown,  "  Latin  America,"  jzi. 


THE   PROBLEM    OF   RELIGIOUS   LIBERTY     II5 

Valencia  and  his  companions,  known  as  the  twelve  apostles 
of  Mexico,  toiled  barefoot  all  the  way  from  Vera  Cruz  to 
Mexico  City,  where  they  were  received  by  Cortes  and  his 
captains  with  a  great  show  of  reverence.  .  .  .  The  Jesuits 
went  everywhere,  but  special  praise  has  been  given  to  their 
work  among  the  Indians  in  Paraguay,  Brazil  and  Northern 
Mexico,  reaching  into  California  and  other  portions  of  our 
own  Southwest. 

In  the  earlier  days,  Franciscans  and  Dominicans,  not  to 
mention  monks  of  many  other  orders,  and  secular  priests, 
were  even  more  prominent.  There  was  a  keen  rivalry  be- 
tween the  secular  and  the  regular  clergy.  .  .  .  From  the 
towns  built  by  their  compatriots,  they  went  forth  in  groups, 
by  twos,  or  even  singly;  and  scattered  themselves  over  the 
entire  country.  They  were  undeterred  by  any  obstacle  and 
undaunted  by  any  danger.  They  endured  the  severest  priva- 
tions, and  many  lost  their  lives  from  the  fatigues  of  toil,  the 
ravages  of  disease,  or  the  violence  of  hostile  savages.  They 
counted  it  all  joy  to  thus  win  the  martyr's  crown,  A  tone 
of  intense  devotion  and  religious  fervor  characterizes  the 
personal  memoirs  of  these  heroic  pioneers.^ 

^^^ot  all  the  priests  who  came  to  the  new  world 
were  men  like  Las  Casas.^,-  It  was  a  priest  named 
Luque  who  financed  Pizarro's  first  gold-hunting  ex- 
pedition down  the  coast  from  Darien.  It  was  another 
priest,  Valverde,  who  acted  as  Pizarro's  mouthpiece 
in  demanding  at  Cajamarca  the  Inca  monarch's  sub- 
mission to  Charles  V  and  who  called  on  the  Spaniards 
to  slaughter  the  Indians,  "  Fall  on,  Castilians ;  I  ab- 
solve you."  -^nd  the  general  effects  of  the  influence 
of  the  priests  upon  the  people  will  appear — but  there 
was  the  far  nobler  side,  and  there  have  from  the  be- 
ginning been  men  like  Las  Casas,  who  loved  the  Sa- 
viour and  served  Him  and  defended  and  befriended 
and  uplifted  the  people  in  their  care.  It  was  due  to 
the  influence  of  such  men  at  the  beginning  that  the 

1  Brown,  "  Latin  America,"  64-67. 


Il6  SOUTH    AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

policy  of  exploiting  the  Indians  without  mercy  or  re- 
straint was  denounced  by  the  Church  in  the  bull  of 
Paul  III  in  1537,  declaring  that 

the  said  Indians  and  all  other  peoples  who  hereafter  shall  be 
brought  to  the  notice  of  the  Cathohcs,  although  they  may  be 
without  the  faith  of  Jesus  Christ,  in  nowise  are  they  to  be 
deprived  of  their  Hberty  and  of  the  control  of  their  goods, 
in  nowise  are  they  to  be  made  slaves.  .  .  .  We  also  deter- 
mine and  declare  that  the  said  Indians  and  other  similar 
peoples  are  to  be  called  to  the  faith  of  Jesus  Christ  by  preach- 
ing and  by  the  example  of  a  good  and  holy  life.^ 

The  Church  is  to  be  honored  for  the  stand  which  it 
took,  even  though  it  did  not  control  the  policy  of  its 
representatives  all  over  South  America,  and  though 
it  was  a  long  time  before  natives  ceased  to  be  ex- 
cluded from  the  full  privileges  of  priestly  orders, 
just  as  they  are  still  kept  out  in  Africa  and  Asia 
to-day. 

Many  orders  of  priests  poured  into  South  Amer- 
ica to  carry  the  Gospel  and  the  Church  over  the  con- 
tinent. The  oldest  establishments  naturally  are  in  Peru. 
Ecclesiastics  accompanied  Valdivia  to  Chile  in  1540. 
Six  years  later  one  of  them,  Marmatijo,  had  been 
made  Vicar  of  Chile  by  the  Bishop  of  Cuzco.  In 
1553  five  Franciscans  came  from  Lima  to  establish 
the  Church  in  Santiago.  The  cathedral  in  Lima  was 
begun  in  1536  and  consecrated  in  1625.  The  first  great 
Archbishop  was  Toribio,  who  was  appointed  in  1578 
and  whose  ecclesiastical  province  was  the  largest  in 
the  world  in  point  of  territory,  embracing  *'  almost 
the  whole  of  South  America,  with  a  portion  of  what 
is  now  Central  America.  And  yet,"  says  Father  Cur- 
rier, "  the  saintly  archbishop  managed  to  hold  three 

*  Quoted  by  Brown,  "  Latin  America,"  70. 


THE   PROBLEM    OF   RELIGIOUS   LIBERTY     II7 

provincial  councils.  At  the  first  of  these,  in  1583, 
the  catechism,  or  '  Doctrina  Cristiana,'  was  ordered, 
which,  composed,  I  believe,  by  the  Jesuit  Acosta,  if 
not  by  Santo  Toribio  himself,  was  translated  into  the 
Quichua  and  Aymara  tongues  by  the  Jesuits,  and 
printed  by  Ricardo  in  1584.  This  was  the  first  book 
ever  printed  in  South  America."  ^ 

In  the  Hibbert  Lectures  for  1884,  Dr.  Albert  Re- 
ville  summarizes  the  character  of  the  conversion  of 
the  Peruvians: 

It  is  no  part  of  our  task  to  tell  the  story  of  the  conversion 
of  the  natives  to  Roman  Catholic  Christianity.  It  was  com- 
paratively easily  effected.  The  fall  of  the  Incas  was  a  mor- 
tal blow  to  the  religious,  no  less  than  to  the  political,  edifice 
in  which  they  were  the  keystone  of  the  arch.  It  was  evident 
that  the  Sun  had  been  unable  or  unwilHng  to  protect  his  chil- 
dren. The  conqueror  imposed  his  rehgion  on  Peru,  as  on 
Mexico,  by  open  force;  and  the  Spanish  Inquisition,  though 
not  giving  rise  to  such  numerous  and  terrible  spectacles  in 
the  former  as  in  the  latter  country,  yet  carried  out  its  work 
of  terror  and  oppression  there  too.  The  result  was  that 
peculiar  character  of  the  Catholicism  of  the  natives  of  Peru 
which  strikes  every  traveler,  and  consists  in  a  kind  of  timid 
and  superstitious  submission,  without  confidence  and  without 
zeal,  associated  with  the  obstinate  preservation  of  customs 
which  mount  back  to  the  former  religious  regime,  and  with 
memories  of  the  golden  age  of  the  Inca  rule  under  which 
their  ancestors  were  obliged  to  live,  but  which  has  gone  to 
return  no  more.2 

In  Ecuador  the  Church  was  the  most  powerful  in- 
fluence in  making  the  country  Spanish.  Mr.  Dawson 
says: 

Within  a  few  years  after  the  conquest  a  regular  bishopric 
was  established  in  Quito,  and  hundreds  of  priests  and  friars 

*  Currier,  "  Lands  of  the  Southern  Cross,"  279,  The  oldest  convent 
of  nuns   in    Lima    was    founded    in    1558. 

*  Reville,  "  The  Native   Religions  of  Mexico  and   Peru,"   199—200. 


Il8  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

flocked  over  to  take  part  in  the  wholesale  evangelization  of 
the  heathen  natives.  The  gospel  was  preached  everywhere, 
churches  and  chapels  built  in  even  the  smallest  villages,  the 
obdurate  Indians  were  treated  with  scant  ceremony,  and  it 
soon  became  well  understood  among  the  natives  that  a 
hearty  acceptance  of  the  Christian  cult  tended  to  keep  them 
out  of  trouble.  Ecuador  quickly  became  one  of  the  most 
devotedly  Catholic  countries  in  the  world,  and  has  ever  since 
remained  so.^ 

The  great  missionary  body  in  South  America  was 
the  Jesuit  order.  Other  priests  of  a  less  satisfactory 
character  had  preceded  them. 

In  the  days  of  the  Spanish  conquest,  Franciscan  monks 
were  the  priests  who  most  often  accompanied  the  expeditions, 
and  they  took  th*  most  prominent  part  in  the  earliest  estab- 
lishment of  religion.  The  members  of  this  Order,  however, 
with  a  few  notable  exceptions,  took  no  special  interest  in 
the  evangelization  of  the  aborigines.  On  the  contrary,  they 
were  as  fierce  as  the  soldiers  themselves  in  their  cruelties  to 
the  poor  Indians.  ...  It  was  the  genius  of  Ignatius  Loyola 
that  conceived  and  perfected  a  machine  able  to  carry  Chris- 
tianity and  civilization  to  these  remote  and  inaccessible  peo- 
ples and  religions.2 

The  order  was  founded  in  1534.  In  1541  Francis 
Xavier  went  out  to  the  East  Indies,  and  in  1549  six 
Jesuits  with  Nobrega  at  their  head  landed  in  Brazil 
with  Thome  de  Souza,  the  first  governor.  After  the 
founding  of  Bahia,  Nobrega  sent  members  of  the 
order  to  the  other  colonies  on  the  Brazilian  coast.  At 
Pernambuco  they  met  opposition  from  the  governor, 
who  objected  to  having  priests  subject  to  a  foreign 
corporation.  "In  Sao  Paulo  they  labored  hard, 
spread  widely,  converted  a  large  number  of  Indians, 
and  perfected  their  system,  but  it  was  there  they  came 

1  Dawson,   "  South  American   Republics,"   Vol.   II,   30sf. 

2  Ibid.,  Vol.  I,   169. 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   RELIGIOUS   LIBERTY     II9 

most  sharply  in  conflict  with  the  spirit  of  individual- 
ism, and  there  they  suffered  their  first  and  most 
crushing  overthrow."  ^  Here  the  great  leader  was 
the  priest  Anchieta,  "  one  of  the  most  notable  men  in 
the  history  of  the  order,  whose  genius,  devotion  and 
pertinacious  courage  laid  the  foundations  of  Jesuit 
power  so  deeply  in  South  America  that  its  effects  re- 
main to  this  day."  ^  His  spirit  is  shown  in  his  letter 
to  Nobrega  regarding  the  school  he  was  sent  to  found : 

Here  we  are,  sometimes  more  than  twenty  of  us  together 
in  a  little  hut  of  mud  and  wicker,  roofed  with  straw,  four- 
teen paces  long  and  ten  wide.  This  is  at  once  the  school,  the 
infirmary,  dormitory,  refectory,  kitchen,  and  storeroom.  Yet 
we  covet  not  the  more  spacious  dwellings  which  our  breth- 
ren have  in  other  parts.  Our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  was  in  a 
far  straiter  place  when  it  was  His  pleasure  to  be  born  among 
beasts  in  a  manger,  and  in  a  still  straiter  when  He  deigned 
to  die  upon  the  cross.^ 

The  Paulistas,  as  the  Portuguese  and  Creole  settlers 
in  Sao  Paulo  were  called,  warred  against  the  mission- 
aries and  the  Indians  whom  they  were  seeking  to 
protect  and  train.  They  *'  destroyed  the  Jesuit  mis- 
sions in  their  neighborhood  and  became  the  most 
expert  in  Indian  warfare  and  the  most  terrible  foes 
of  the  Jesuit  system  of  all  the  colonists  of  South 
America.  Thdr  determined  opposition  was  the  most 
potent  cause  in  preventing  the  subjection  of  South 
America  to  a  theocratic  system  of  government."  * 

Jesuit  missionaries  arrived  in  Bolivia  within  twenty- 
five  years  after  Loyola  had  founded  the  order. 

They  established  an  important  mission  on  the  banks  of 
Lake   Titicaca  in    1577,  and  five  years   later   introduced   the 

*  Dawson,    "  South    American    Republics,"    Vol.    I,    328. 

2  Ibid,  Vol.  I,  329.        3  Ibid.,  Vol.  I,  33of.        *  Ibid.,  Vol.  I,  170. 


I20  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

printing-press  in  order  to  distribute  among  their  proselytes 
grammars  and  catechisms  in  the  native  tongues.  In  the 
seventeenth  century  they  succeeded  in  penetrating  down  the 
eastern  slope  of  the  Andes  and  across  the  great  central  plain 
to  the  outlying  hills  of  the  Brazilian  mountain  system,  where 
they  established  several  missions  among  the  Chiquitos  In- 
dians They  even  reached  the  grassy  prairies  which  lie  three 
hundred  miles  north  of  the  inner  angle  of  the  great  plateau, 
converted  the  Mojos,  and  taught  them  to  herd  cattle.* 

The  great  triumph  of  the  Jesuits  was  in  the  far  in- 
terior of  southern  Brazil,  in  upper  Uruguay  and  in 
Paraguay.  The  Fathers  entered  Paraguay  about  1586 
and  their  success  was  wonderful.  Learning  accu- 
rately the  language  of  the  people,  studying  their 
prejudices  and  conforming  to  them,  teaching  them 
trades  and  better  methods  of  agriculture,  gathering 
them  into  towns  with  comfortable  dwellings  and  good 
storehouses,  they  introduced  a  new  era  in  southeast- 
em  Paraguay  and  founded  a  Jesuit  republic  in  the 
province  of  Guayra,  which  is  now  Brazilian  territory. 
Here  they  seemed  secure  in  the  heart  of  the  conti- 
nent, but  once  again  the  Paulistas — seeking  Indian 
slaves,  hating  the  Jesuit  theocratic  order,  claiming  the 
land  for  white  settlers,  and,  as  Portuguese,  eager  to 
drive  back  Spanish  occupation — fell  upon  the  de- 
fenseless missionaries  and  wrought  havoc  with  the 
results  of  the  Jesuits'  devoted  labor.  Driven  out  from 
Guayra,  the  missionaries  enlarged  their  labor  in  Para- 
guay and  the  ruins  of  their  buildings  show  how  great 
were  their  establishments. 

Doom  fell  upon  the  Jesuit  missions  in  South  Amer- 
ica at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century,  to  the  dis- 
tress of  the  poor  people  who  had  found  in  them 
protection  and  prosperity.     In  1760  the  Jesuits  were 

1  Dawson,  "  South  American  Republics,"  Vol.  II,  245. 


THE   PROBLEM    OF    RELIGIOUS    LIBERTY     121 

expelled  from  Brazil.  It  was  charged  that  they  were 
mining  precious  metals  by  slave  labor  without  giving 
the  government  its  share.  They  were  the  only  per- 
sons whom  the  government  feared.  In  1767  Spain 
followed  Portugal  and  France  in  the  expulsion  of  the 
Jesuits  from  all  her  dominions.  "  In  the  neighbor- 
hood of  Lima  alone  they  owned  five  thousand  negro 
slaves  and  property  to  the  value  of  two  million  dol- 
lars, and  every  penny  of  their  immense  accumulations 
was  confiscated  by  the  government."  ^ 

On  the  upper  Parana  the  Jesuits  had  thousands  of 
Indians  disciplined  and  well-armed  and  devoted  to 
them,  but  they  offered  no  resistance  to  the  decrees  of 
expulsion  but  took  peaceably  the  spoiling  of  their 
goods.  It  was  not  many  years  before  they  were  back 
again  in  many  of  the  South  American  lands,  but 
meanwhile  their  work  was  shattered  and  it  was  never 
restored.  The  "  Cambridge  Modern  History "  de- 
clares the  expulsion  of  the  Jesuits  in  1767  to  have 
been  "  the  greatest  blow  inflicted  on  the  Indies  since 
the  conquest.  ...  It  was  also  a  great  shock  to  the 
missions  and  to  European  influence  on  the  fron- 
tiers. ...  A  great  part  of  the  ground  lost  was 
never  regained ;  indeed  some  interior  parts  of  South 
America  were  less  known  to  white  men  in  1850  than 
in  1750."  ^ 

What  has  been  said  of  the  Jesuit  missions  shows 
that  the  bull  of  Paul  III  was  not  a  dead  letter  but 
that  earnest  efforts  were  put  forth  to  teach  and  im- 
prove the  Indians.  But  the  medieval  delusions  had 
come  with  the  men  whose  education  had  been  under 
these  delusions.  The  end  of  external  conformity  was 
a  sufficient  end,  and  any  means  were  justified  which 

^  Dawson, -"  South  American  Republics,"  Vol.  II,  71.       "^Woi.  X,  271. 


122  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

promised  its  attainment.  Towns  were  baptized  en 
masse.  The  protection  of  the  Church  drew  multi- 
tudes to  its  communion.  The  Hmitation  of  the  right 
of  inheritance  to  baptized  children  was  an  effectual 
pressure.  When  the  Church  took  away  native  cus- 
toms the  Indian  found  all  that  he  had  cherished  con- 
secrated in  the  new  worship.  A  more  splendid  ritual 
than  he  had  ever  dreamed  of  overawed  him.  But 
there  were  also  true  efforts  made  to  teach  and  evan- 
gelize and  there  were  men  devoted  even  unto  death, 
who  went  to  and  fro  preaching  the  Gospel  as  they 
knew  it  in  their  Church  and  age.^ 

The  Inquisition  played  its  part  also  in  the  new 
world.  It  was  introduced  into  Peru  in  1570  and  for 
years  the  present  senate  building  of  the  Peruvian 
government  was  the  Inquisition  tribunal.  The  first 
auto  da  fe  was  celebrated  in  1573  on  the  great  plaza 
of  Lima.  Lima  in  Peru  and  Cartagena  in  Colombia 
were  the  two  chief  centers  of  the  Inquisition.  The 
South  American  historians  declare  that  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  victims  were  sacrificed.  The  traveler  is 
told  weird  tales  still  as  he  stands  under  the  richly 
carved  ceiling  of  the  senate  hall  in  Lima  or  in  the 
old  cathedral  at  Cartagena  with  the  iron  gratings  on 
its  windows  said  to  have  been  the  grills  of  the  dark 
days  when  men  were  burned  over  fires  to  make  them 
believe.  The  Inquisition  was  not  used  against  the 
Indians  but  its  awful  processions  and  the  knowledge 
of  its  dread  power  impressed  their  imaginations  and 
wielded  a  great  persuasion.  During  all  these  years 
South  America  knew  but  one  religion.  A  rigid  unity 
crushed  all  freedom  and  made  intellectual  or  spiritual 
growth  an  impossibility.     The  weakening  dominance 

*  See   Brown,    "Latin   America,"    76-102. 


i 

b^ 

J     1    i    ^01.     ■ 

pSBii^ii>     ^'^'fll 

Statue  of  General  Rolivar.  and  Senate  Building, 

Lima,   Peru 

The   Senate  Building  was  formerly  part  of  the  old  Inquisition 


Santa  Lucia,  a  Pleasure  Ground  of  Santiago,  Chile 


THE   PROBLEM    OF   RELIGIOUS   LIBERTY     I23 

for  generations  of  religious  orders  and  the  black 
blight  of  the  Inquisition  are  part  of  the  inheritance 
with  which  the  continent  has  still  to  struggle.  But 
the  Inquisition  is  gone  forever  and  the  religious 
orders,  which  the  popular  hatred  of  the  Dominicans, 
because  of  the  Inquisition,  helped  to  overthrow,  and 
which  are  now  regaining  some  of  their  power,  can 
never  again  be  what  they  were  in  the  colonial  days. 

And  what  were  the  real  results  of  the  work  of  the 
Church  in  these  colonial  days  in  terms  of  religion 
and  social  life?  Let  three  witnesses  who  cannot  be 
accused  of  anti-Roman  prejudice  answer  as  to  the 
conditions  in  the  sixteenth  century. 

First,  the  Mexican  historian,  General  Vicente  Riva 
Palacio : 

The  people  conquered  by  the  Spaniards  in  the  Indies  did 
not  have  even  a  remote  idea  of  Christian  doctrine  or  Cath- 
olic worship;  but  they  looked  upon  their  conversion  to  that 
doctrine  and  worship  as  a  necessary  consequence  of  their 
defeat  in  battle,  as  an  indispensable  requisite  which  affirmed 
their  vassalage  and  slavery  to  the  Spanish  monarch;  since, 
as  this  was  the  principal  motive  which  the  conquerors  as- 
signed for  the  invasion,  they,  however  rude  we  may  suppose 
them  to  have  been,  knew  that  on  the  outcome  of  the  cam- 
paign depended  the  religion  which  they  were  to  have  in  the 
future,  since  they  would  have  to  adopt  that  of  the  Christians 
as  soon  as  these  were  victorious.^ 

Second,  Father  Currier: 

Peru,  with  all  its  advantages  and  churches  innumerable, 
has  known  to  an  alarming  extent  the  decline  of  religion,  and 
though  to-day  there  is  a  marked  improvement  over  the 
past,  there  still  remains  much  to  be  desired.  As  far  back 
as  the  sixteenth  century,  a  frightful  state  of  religious  neg- 
lect must  have  existed  in  Lima,  if  we  accept  the  statement 
of  the  Jesuit  Oliva,  who  gives  the  credit  for  the  first  im- 
*  Quoted  by  Brown,   "  Latin  America,"  74. 


124  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

pulse  toward  reform  to  the  Fathers  of  his  own  Society. 
Those  were  the  days  of  the  many  lawless  adventurers  and 
fortune  hunters  who  were  pouring  into  the  new  world, 
which,  as  Cervantes  remarked  in  his  day,  was  the  dumping 
ground  for  Spain.  .  .  . 

Strange  times  those  were,  indeed,  according  to  our  views, 
when  the  bull-fights  on  the  Plaza  Mayor  were  attended  not 
only  by  the  vice-regal  court,  but  by  the  religious  communi- 
ties, and  by  the  archbishop  himself.  Bull-fights,  alternating 
with  an  occasional  auto  da  fe  furnished  periodical .  excite- 
ment to  the  people  of  Lima.  The  auto  da  fe  has  gone;  but 
the  bull-fight  still  endures.^ 

Third,  the  Hon.  Thomas  C.  Dawson,  for  many 
years  in  the  American  diplomatic  service  in  South 
America,  who  dedicates  his  book  on  the  South  Ameri- 
can Republics,  one  of  the  best  books  in  English  on 
the  history  and  development  of  South  America,  to  his 
wife,  as  "  the  history  of  her  native  continent" : 

It  is  impossible  not  to  admire  the  courage,  shrewdness,  and 
devotion  of  the  Jesuits.  They  went  out  alone  among  the 
savage  tribes,  living  with  them,  learning  their  languages, 
preaching  to  them,  captivating  their  imaginations  by  the 
pomp  of  religious  paraphernalia  and  processions,  baptizing 
them,  and  exhorting  them  to  abandon  cannibalism  and  polyg- 
amy. Tireless  and  fearless,  they  plunged  into  an  interior 
hitherto  unpenetrated  by  white  men.  .  .  . 

The  Indians  were  easily  induced  to  conform  to  the  exter- 
nals of  the  Christian  cult.  Wherever  the  Jesuits  penetrated, 
the  aborigines  soon  adopted  Christianity,  but  to  hold  the  In- 
dians to  Christianity  the  Fathers  were  obliged  to  fix  them 
to  the  soil.  As  soon  as  a  tribe  was  converted,  a  rude  church 
building  was  erected,  and  a  Jesuit  installed,  who  remained 
to  teach  agriculture  and  the  arts  as  well  as  ritual  and  morals. 
His  moral  and  intellectual  superiority  made  him  perforce  an 
absolute  ruler  in  miniature.  Thus  that  strange  theocracy 
came  into  being,  which,  starting  on  the  Brazilian  coast,  spread 
over  most  of  central  South  America.     In  the  early  part  of 

*  Currier,   "Lands  of  the   Southern   Cross,"  281  f. 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   RELIGIOUS   LIBERTY     125 

the  seventeenth  century  the  theocratic  seemed  likely  to  be- 
come the  dominant  form  of  government  south  of  the  Ama- 
zon and  east  of  the  Andes.  .  .  . 

Primarily,  at  least,  the  Jesuit  purpose  was  altruistic,  though 
the  material  advantages  and  the  fascination  of  exercising 
authority  were  soon  potent  motives.  The  Jesuits  gave  the 
South  American  Indian  the  greatest  measure  of  peace  and 
justice  he  ever  enjoyed,  but  they  reduced  him  to  blind  obe- 
dience and  made  him  a  tenant  and  a  servant.  Though  vir- 
tually a  slave,  he  was,  however,  little  exposed  to  infection 
from  the  vices  and  diseases  of  civilization ;  he  was  not  put 
at  tasks  too  hard  for  him;  and  under  Jesuit  rule  he  pros- 
pered. On  the  other  hand,  if  this  system  had  prevailed  there 
would  have  been  little  white  immigration,  the  Indian  race 
would  have  remained  in  possession  of  the  country,  and  real 
civilization  would  never  have  gained  a  foothold.^ 

And  while  tv^o  centuries  must  have  availed  to  famil- 
iarize the  South  American  people  with  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church,  the  statement  of  Mr.  Kirkpatrick 
in  the  **  Cambridge  Modern  History,"  planned  by- 
Lord  Acton,  the  greatest  Roman  Catholic  historian 
whom  England  has  produced,  indicates  that  what 
Father  Currier  says  of  Peru  in  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury was  true  of  South  America  generally  at  the  close 
of  the  eighteenth: 

The  same  license  pervaded  the  Church.  The  complaint  re- 
curs throughout  that  the  clergy  are  recruited  from  two 
sources :  some  are  the  outcasts  of  Spanish  parishes  and  mon- 
asteries; others  are  Creoles,  either  idle  and  dissolute  men 
driven  by  disgrace  or  want  to  take  Orders,  or  else  men  put 
into  religion  by  their  parents  with  a  view  of  getting  a  doc- 
trina  or  Indian  parish  and  making  a  fortune  out  of  the  In- 
dians. Many  benefices,  including  most  of  the  doctrinas,  were 
by  special  dispensation  in  the  hands  of  regular  clergy  almost 
exempt  from  episcopal  control.  The  rule  of  celibacy  was 
generally  evaded;  religious  duties  were  hurried  through,  and 

*  DawBon,  "  South  American  Republics,"  Vol.   I,  326-328. 


126  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

the  instruction  of  Indians  was  reduced  to  an  absurdity; 
amidst  general  immorality  in  the  towns,  the  regulars  set  the 
worst  example,  making  their  monasteries  places  of  license 
and  pleasure.  The  quadrennial  chapters  of  the  Orders  held 
for  the  election  of  provincial  prelates  were  scandalous  scenes 
of  disorder  and  strife — Creoles  and  Europeans  contending 
for  these  lucrative  posts,  which  held  the  patronage,  subject 
to  vice-regal  confirmation,  of  all  the  parishes  administered 
by  the  Order;  the  victor  was  conducted  home  by  the  idlers 
of  the  town,  waving  banners  and  clashing  castanets.  From 
1629  the  different  Orders  were  successively  commanded  to 
elect  a  European  and  a  Creole  alternately.  At  the  first  Fran- 
ciscan election  held  in  Lima  in  1680  under  this  rule  the 
Creole  padres  resisted  the  command,  made  a  murderous  at- 
tack upon  the  commissary-general  of  their  Order,  and  fought 
in  the  streets  against  the  infantry  sent  to  suppress  the  dis- 
turbance. The  scandals  of  these  chapters  recur  in  vice-regal 
and  episcopal  reports  down  to  the  nineteenth  century.  But 
there  were  large  exceptions  to  these  disorders ;  the  missions 
required  and  found  self-sacrificing  and  devoted  priests;  the 
Franciscans  were  better  than  the  other  Orders ;  and  the  Jesu- 
its observed  admirable  conduct,  maintaining  the  same  dis- 
cipline as  in  Europe,  expelling  unworthy  members  and  de- 
voting themselves  in  their  colleges  to  education,  to  study, 
and  to  religious  and  charitable  ministrations.^ 

II.  The  problem  of  Religious  Liberty.  During  all 
these  centuries  the  Roman  Church  had  entire  control  of 
religious  instruction  in  South  America.  More  than  this, 
it  had  control  often  of  the  government  or,  with  occa- 
sional exceptions,  was  the  dominant  political  influence. 
When  the  movement  of  political  emancipation  came  and 
South  America  passed  out  from  the  control  of  the  Ro- 
man Catholic  kingdom  of  Spain,  the  movement  was 
strictly  political  and  explicitly  disavowed  any  hostility 
to  the  Church  which  was  so  closely  identified  with 
Spain  and  Portugal  as  political  forces.  The  Venezuelan 
declaration  of  independence   stated  that  in  asserting 

*  "  Cambridge  Modern  History,"  Vol.  X,  252,  253. 


THE   PROBLEM    OF   RELIGIOUS   LIBERTY     I27 

independence  the  people  ratified  their  desire  "  of  be- 
lieving and  defending  the  Holy  Catholic  and  Apostolic 
Religion  of  Jesus  Christ."  It  was  indicative  of  the 
powerful  hold  the  Church  had  upon  the  minds  of  the 
people  that  they  protested  loyalty  to  the  Church  and 
refused  to  include  her  in  their  opposition  to  Spain 
and  in  their  assertion  of  freedom,  in  spite  of  the  fact 
that  she  had  been  used  as  a  powerful  repressive 
agency  against  them  and  that  her  influence  and  the 
influence  of  her  priests  had  been  almost  wholly  on 
the  royalist  side.  As  the  Argentine  manifesto  as- 
serted of  the  Spanish  course,  **  They  propagated 
against  us  atrocious  calumnies,  attributing  to  us  the 
design  of  destroying  our  sound  religion,  of  setting 
aside  all  morality  and  establishing  licentiousness  of 
manners.  They  carried  on  a  war  of  religion  against 
us,  devising  many  and  various  plots  to  agitate  and 
alarm  the  consciences  of  the  people,  by  causing  the 
Spanish  bishops  to  issue  edicts  of  ecclesiastical  cen- 
sure and  interdiction  among  the  faithful,  to  publish 
ex-communications  and  by  means  of  some  ignorant 
confessors,  to  sow  fanatical  doctrines  in  the  tribunal  of 
penance.  By  the  aid  of  such  religious  discords,  they 
have  sown  dissension  in  families,  produced  quarrels 
between  parents  and  their  children,  torn  asunder  the 
bonds  which  united  man  and  wife,  scattered  impla- 
cable enmity  and  rancor  among  brothers  formerly  the 
most  affectionate,  and  even  placed  nature  herself  in  a 
state  of  hostility  and  variance."  In  spite  of  all  this, 
the  new  republics  protested  their  devotion  to  the 
Church  and  without  exception  declared  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church  to  be  the  established  Church  and  in- 
terdicted all  others.  There  were,  however,  discus- 
sions as  to  the  propriety  of  denying  freedom  of  re- 


128  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

ligion  and  Bolivar  himself,  addressing  the  Venezuelan 
Congress  in  1819,  expressed  regret  that  the  new  con- 
stitution forbade  religious  liberty  and  said,  "  No  re- 
ligious creed  or  profession  should  be  prescribed  in  a 
political  constitution." 

The  new  republics  soon  discovered  that  in  freeing 
themselves  from  the  Roman  Catholic  powers,  they 
had  not  secured  their  liberty.  The  Church  was  still 
with  them  and  its  radical  hostility  to  free  institutions 
which  had  been  unperceived  during  the  disturbance 
of  war  now  began  to  reveal  itself.  Political  parties 
formed  themselves  on  the  issue  of  progress  and  lib- 
erty or  conservatism  and  Latin  Catholicism.  The 
conservative  parties  got  the  name  of  *'  clericals."  ^ 
Questions  arose  as  to  the  appointment  of  bishops. 
Should  the  right,  formerly  exercised  by  the  Spanish 
government,  be  exercised  by  the  new  governments 
or  revert  to  the  Church?  The  Church  and  religious 
orders  were  immensely  wealthy.  Questions  of  taxa- 
tion arose.  Were  the  religious  orders  to  be  exempt? 
Should  the  Church  be  allowed  to  roll  in  wealth,  while 
poverty  oppressed  the  government,  to  which,  under 
constitutional  principles  with  an  established  Church, 
the  Church  owed  everything? 

The  issue  of  religious  liberty  arose  also  in  connec- 
tion with  immigration.  Brazil  and  Argentina  espe- 
cially wanted  immigrants  from  northern  Europe  and 
they  soon  came.  But  when  they  came  the  impossi- 
bility of  the  conditions  under  which  they  had  to  live 
emerged.  The  young  people  wished  to  marry.  They 
could  not  do  so,  for  there  was  no  civil  marriage.  The 
only  marriage  was  marriage  in  the  Roman  Church. 
Children  were  born.     If  born  out  of  Roman  marriage 

^  Rankin,   "  Twenty  Years  Among  the  Mexicans,"  75. 


THE   PROBLEM    OF   RELIGIOUS   LIBERTY     I29 

they  were  deemed  illegitimate.  They  could  not  be 
baptized.  There  was  only  Roman  baptism.  And  un- 
baptized  they  were  incapable  of  the  inheritance  of 
property.  And  old  people  died.  There  were  no  ceme- 
teries in  which  they  could  be  laid  to  rest.  The  Roman 
Church  absolutely  controlled  the  burial  grounds  and 
admitted  to  them  only  Roman  Catholic  dead.  The 
leading  minds  of  South  America  saw  at  once  the  im- 
possibility of  the  situation.  As  Alberdi,  one  of  the 
foremost  publicists  of  Argentina,  wrote,  "  Spanish 
America,  reduced  to  Catholicism,  with  the  exclusion 
of  any  other  cult,  represents  a  solitary  and  silent  con- 
vent of  monks.  The  dilemma  is  fatal — either  Catho- 
lic and  unpopulated,  or  populated  and  prosperous  and 
tolerant  in  the  matter  of  religion.  To  invite  the 
Anglo-Saxon  race  and  the  people  of  Germany,  Swe- 
den and  Switzerland  and  deny  them  the  exercise  of 
their  worship  is  to  offer  them  a  sham  hospitality  and 
to  exhibit  a  false  liberalism.  To  exclude  the  dissent- 
ing cults  from  South  America  is  to  exclude  the  Eng- 
lish, the  German,  the  Irish  and  the  North  American, 
who  are  not  Catholics,  that  is  to  say,  the  inhabitants 
whom  this  continent  most  needs.  To  bring  them  with- 
out their  cult  is  to  bring  them  without  the  agent  that 
makes  them  what  they  are,  and  to  compel  them  to  live 
without  religion  and  to  become  atheists." 

Under  free  institutions,  moreover,  men  began  to 
think  freely.  They  learned  more  of  the  world  and 
by  comparison  came  to  understand  more  clearly  the 
real  character  and  corruption  of  the  Church.  They 
saw  also  that  their  free  institutions  were  doomed  un- 
less they  secured  them  not  only  against  Spain  and 
Portugal,  but  also  against  a  far  more  subtle  and 
powerful  foe,  even  Rome  itself.    Mexico,  as  the  most 


130  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

enlightened  of  the  new  Latin  Republics,  faced  the 
issue  first.  She  felt  its  reality  in  her  own  situation.^ 
Maximilian,  himself,  issued  a  manifesto  to  the  Church 
in  which  he  said,  "  Confess,  my  well  esteemed  pre- 
lates, that  the  Mexican  Church,  by  a  lamentable  fa- 
tality has  mingled  too  much  in  politics  and  in  affairs 
of  temporal  possessions,  neglecting  in  consequence 
the  Catholic  instruction  of  its  flocks."  The  long 
struggle  in  Mexico  for  liberty  from  Spain  and  then 
from  Europe  ended  at  last  in  political  independence, 
and  also  in  independence  from  Rome,  when  on  Febru- 
ary 5,  1867,  a  new  constitution  was  issued  which  pro- 
vided for  freedom  of  religion. 

Sooner  or  later  the  same  issue  arose  in  each  of  the 
new  states,  the  republics  striving  for  a  healthy  de- 
velopment in  freedom  and  the  wholesome  privilege  of 
enlightened  self-government  and  the  Church  as  con- 
stantly throwing  her  influence  against  such  develop- 
ment and  in  favor  of  medievalism,  popular  ignorance 
and  ecclesiastical  autocracy.  In  1852,  the  Pope  de- 
nounced the  movement  in  New  Granada  toward  re- 
ligious liberty,  which  decreed  the  expulsion  of  the 
Jesuits,  a  curtailment  of  Church  revenues,  free  educa- 
tion, freedom  of  the  press  and  freedom  of  public  and 
private  worship.  These  *'  nefarious  decrees,"  the  Pope 
condemned  and  declared  to  be  "  null  and  void."  In 
October,  1864,  Pius  IX  wrote  to  Maximilian : 

Your  majesty  is  well  aware  that  in  order  effectively  to  re- 
pair the  evil  occasioned  by  the  revolution  and  to  bring  back 
as  soon  as  possible  happy  days  for  the  Church,  the  Catholic 
religion  must,  above  all  things,  continue  to  be  the  glory  and 
mainstay  of  the  Mexican  nation  to  the  exclusion  of  every 
other  dissenting  worship;  that  the  bishops  must  be  perfectly 

^  See   Wilson,    "  Mexico,"    323. 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   RELIGIOUS   LIBERTY     I3I 

free  in  the  exercise  of  their  pastoral  ministry;  that  the  re- 
ligious orders  should  be  reestablished  or  reorganized;  that 
no  person  may  obtain  the  faculty  of  teaching  false  and  sub- 
versive tenets ;  that  instruction,  whether  public  or  private, 
should  be  directed  and  watched  over  by  the  ecclesiastical 
authority,  and  that,  in  short,  the  chains  may  be  broken  which 
up  to  the  present  time  have  held  the  Church  in  a  state  of 
self-dependence  and  subject  to  the  arbitrary  rule  of  civil 
Government.! 

In  December  of  the  same  year,  the  Pope  issued  an 
encyclical  addressed  to  all  "  patriarchs,  primates,  arch- 
bishops and  bishops  in  connection  with  the  apostolic 
See  throughout  the  world,"  in  which  he  set  forth  the 
following  positions: 

1.  The  Catholic  Church  ought  fully  to  exercise  until  the 
end  of  time  a  "  salutary  force,  not  only  with  regard  to  each 
individual  man,  but  with  regard  to  nations,  peoples  and  their 
rulers." 

2.  The  best  condition  of  society  is  that  in  which  the  power 
of  the  laity  is  compelled  to  inflict  the  penalties  of  law  upon 
violators  of  the  Catholic  religion, 

3.  The  opinion  that  "  liberty  of  conscience  and  of  worship 
is  the  right  of  every  man,"'  is  not  only  "  an  erroneous  opin- 
ion, very  hurtful  to  the  safety  of  the  Catholic  Church  and  of 
souls,"  but  is  also  "  delirious." 

4.  Liberty  of  speech  and  the  press  is  "the  liberty  of  per- 
dition." 

5.  The  judgments  of  the  Holy  See,  even  when  they  do  not 
speak  of  faith  and  morals,  claim  acquiescence  and  obedience, 
under  pain  of  sin  and  loss  of  the  Catholic  profession. 

6.  It  is  false  to  say  "  that  every  man  is  free  to  embrace 
and  profess  the  religion  he  shall  believe  true,"  or  that  those 
who  "  embrace  and  profess  any  religion  may  obtain  eternal 
salvation." 

7.  The  "  Church  has  the  power  of  availing  herself  of  force, 
or  of  direct  or  indirect  temporal  power." 

*  Lefevre,  "  History  of  the  French  Intervention  in  Mexico,"  Vol.  II, 
16;  Appleton's  "Universal  Cyclopedia,"  1865,  749.  Quoted  by  Butler, 
"  Mexico  in  Transition,"    180. 


132  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

8.  In  a  legal  conflict  "  between  the  ecclesiastical  and  civil 
powers,"   the   ecclesiastical   "  ought   to   prevail." 

9.  It  is  a  false  and  pernicious  doctrine  that  "  public  schools 
should  be  opened  without  distinction  to  all  children  of  the 
people  and  free  from  all  ecclesiastical  authority." 

10.  It  is  false  to  say  that  the  "  principle  of  non-intervention 
must  be  proclaimed  and  observed." 

11.  It  is  necessary  in  the  present  day  that  the  Catholic  re- 
ligion shall  be  held  as  the  only  religion  of  the  state  to  the 
exclusion  of  all  other  modes  of  worship.^ 

The  American  republics  were  gradually  forced  to 
recognize,  accordingly,  that  the  establishment  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church  as  the  exclusive  Church 
meant  the  deliberate  rejection  of  those  agencies  and 
institutions  of  liberty,  without  which  they  could  call 
their  states  republics,  but  could  not  call  their  people 
free.  One  by  one,  accordingly,  they  have  been  deny- 
ing the  autocracy  of  Rome  as  they  denied  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  nineteenth  century  the  autocracy  of 
Spain.  There  is  now  practical  religious  liberty  in 
every  South  American  land.  It  came  last  in  Peru 
and  BoHvia.  The  Inquisition  was  not  abolished  in 
these  two  lands  till  1821  and  "  as  late  as  1836,  the 
penalty  was  death  for  holding  any  worship  other  than 
the  Roman  Catholic  in  Bolivia  and  Peru."  ^ 

Yet,  Church  and  State  are  not  separated  in  South 
America.  Indeed,  Brazil  is  the  only  South  American 
country  whose  constitution  provides  for  full  relig- 
ious liberty  and  gives  no  political  precedence  to  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church.  The  fifth  article  of  the 
Constitution  of  the  Empire  provided,  "  The  Roman 
Catholic  shall  continue  to  be  the  one  established  re- 

1  Butler,  "  Mexico  in  Transition,"  1971,  quoting  Encylical  from  The 
Christian   Advocate,    New    York,    1865. 

2  •'  Protestant    Missions    in    South    America,"    148. 


THE   PROBLEM    OF   RELIGIOUS    LIBERTY     133 

ligion  of  the  State ;  all  other  religions  shall,  however, 
be  tolerated  with  their  special  worship  in  private 
houses,  and  in  houses  designated  for  the  purpose, 
without  the  exterior  form  of  a  temple."  But  the  Con- 
stitution of  the  Republic  guarantees  perfect  religious 
liberty  and  freedom  of  worship  and  debars  no  man 
from  any  office  because  of  his  religious  belief.  The 
Government  pays  money  for  charitable  institutions, 
such  as  the  large  hospital  in  Rio,  which  are  under  the 
Church,  but  the  Roman  Catholic  sisters  are  the  only 
persons  available  as  yet  for  the  administration  of 
such  institutions.  It  no  longer  supports  the  priests 
as  it  did  under  the  monarchy.  There  has  been  of 
late,  however,  a  great  ultramontane  revival.  Many 
of  the  Spanish  priests  expelled  from  the  Philippines 
by  the  rebellion  there,  came  to  Brazil  and  the  Church 
has  apparently  rekindled  its  purpose  to  dominate  the 
land. 

In  Chile,  the  Church  is  legally  established  and  re- 
ceives a  subsidy,  listed  in  the  annual  budget  of  the 
Government,  of  approximately  1,000,000  pesos.  Full 
religious  toleration,  however,  has  been  guaranteed 
and  in  1888,  the  Government  granted  to  the  Union 
Evangelica  a  charter,  stating  that  "those  who  pro- 
fess the  Reformed  Church  religion  according  to  the 
doctrines  of  Holy  Scripture  may  promote  primary 
and  superior  instruction,  according  to  modern  methods 
and  practices  and  propagate  the  worship  of  their  be- 
lief, obedient  to  the  laws  of  the  land."  The  Church 
of  Rome  naturally  has  still  its  special  privileges  and 
has  retained  immense  wealth. 

Its  property  in  Santiago  alone  is  said  to  be  worth  more  than 
$100,000,000  in  gold.  It  owns  some  of  the  best  business 
blocks  in  the  city.    The  whole  of  one  side  of  the  Plaza,  which 


134  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

is  the  centre  as  well  as  the  most  valuable  of  Santiago  busi- 
ness property,  is  taken  up  by  the  palace  of  the  Archbishop 
and  the  Cathedral,  and  there  is  other  property  in  the  neigh- 
borhood which  belongs  to  the  Church.  It  has  acres  of  stores, 
thousands  of  rented  houses  and  vast  haciendas,  upon  which 
wines  and  other  products  are  manufactured  and  offered  for 
sale.  Nearly  all  is  controlled  by  the  Archbishop,  although 
much  of  the  church  property  is  held  by  the  different  organi- 
zations. The  Carmelite  nuns  of  Santiago  are  the  richest  body 
of  women  in  South  America,  if  not  in  the  world.^ 

The  state  also  makes  appropriations  from  the  public 
funds  for  the  support  of  the  parish  clergy  and  of 
Church  schools  and  for  the  erection  of  churches.^ 

In  Bolivia  the  Roman  Catholic  religion  is  the  re- 
ligion of  the  state  to  the  exclusion  of  other  cults, 
but  these  are  freely  tolerated.  The  law  is  not  ob- 
served which  until  a  few  years  ago  stood  on  the 
statute  books  as  Article  195  of  Chapter  III  of  the 
Section  of  the  Penal  Code  of  Bolivia  that  treats  of 
"  Crimes  against  the  Religion  of  the  State." 

Whoever  conspires  directly  and  in  fact  to  establish  any 
other  religion  in  Bolivia,  or  aims  at  having  the  Republic  cease 
to  profess  the  Catholic  Apostolic  Roman  religion,  is  a  traitor, 
and  shall  suffer  the  death  penalty.^ 

In  Peru  there  has  been  a  long  struggle,  and  though 
the  Church  is  established  and  the  Papal  representa- 
tive, as  in  Colombia,  is  ex-officio  head  of  the  diplo- 
matic corps,  yet  still  there  is  full  practical  liberty 
recognized  by  the  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  in 
releasing  and  acquitting  Mr.  Penzotti,  who  was  im- 
prisoned for  preaching  twenty  years  ago.*  The  Con- 
stitution of  Peru,  however,  still  declares :  "  The  Na- 

1  Carpenter,    "  South    America,"    228. 

*  "Protestant  Missions   in    South  America,"    136, 

'  Quoted  by  Lee,  "  Religious  Liberty  in  South  America,"  12. 

*  Ibid.,   14,   15,  48. 


THE   PROBLEM    OF   RELIGIOUS    LIBERTY     I35 

tion  professes  the  Apostolic  Roman  Catholic  religion; 
the  State  protects  it,  and  does  not  permit  the  public 
exercise  of  any  other."  ^ 

The  movement  of  religious  liberation  in  South 
America  contains  many  alternations.  A  republic 
which  has  taken,  under  liberal  guidance,  advanced 
ground  on  questions  of  freedom  of  religion  and  free 
education,  may  under  clerical  control  reverse  all  its 
progress,  while  a  state  which  has  been  dominated  by 
the  Church  in  the  most  degrading  way  may  suddenly 
break  through  its  enslavement  into  liberty.  Colombia 
illustrates  the  former  course  and  Ecuador  the  latter. 

In  1888,  President  Arthur  sent  Mr.  W.  E.  Curtis 
to  South  America  as  a  special  commissioner  to  in- 
vestigate the  prevailing  conditions,  with  reference,  of 
course,  to  the  prospects  of  trade.  This  was  the  judg- 
ment he  formed  of  Ecuador: 

The  priests  had  such  a  hold  upon  the  people,  that  liberty 
could  not  live  in  an  atmosphere  which  they  polluted  and  the 
country  lapsed  into  a  state  of  anarchy  which  has  continued 
ever  since.  ...  It  is  the  only  country  in  America  in  which 
the  Romish  Church  survives  as  the  Spaniards  left  it.  .  .  . 
The  rule  which  prevails  everywhere  that  the  less  a  people 
are  under  the  control  of  that  Church,  the  better  their  pros- 
perity, enlightenment  and  progress,  is  illustrated  in  Ecuador 
with  striking  force.  One-fourth  of  all  the  property  in 
Ecuador  belongs  to  the  Bishop.  There  is  a  Catholic  Church 
for  every  150  inhabitants;  of  the  population  of  the  country, 
ten  per  cent  are  priests,  monks  or  nuns,  and  272  of  the  365 
days  of  the  year  are  observed  as  feast  or  fast  days.  The 
priests  control  the  Government  in  all  its  branches,  dictate  its 
laws  and  govern  their  enforcement  and  rule  the  country  as 
absolutely  as  if  the  Pope  were  its  king.2 

There  could  be  no  hope  of  evangelical  work  in  such 

^  Lee,    "  Religious    Liberty   in    South   America,"    13. 
*  Curtis,  "  Capitals  of   South  America,"   306. 


136  SOUTH    AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

a  land.  Since  1895,  however,  a  complete  change  has 
taken  place.  The  Rev.  T.  B.  Wood,  D.D.,  for  more 
than  thirty  years  a  missionary  in  South  America, 
wrote  on  February  25,  1902: 

Ecuador  is  surpassing  all  other  South  American  countries 
in  the  speed  of  its  new  progress.  As  late  as  1895,  its  con- 
stitution excluded  all  worship  but  the  Roman  Catholic  ab- 
solutely. Now  it  ensures  full  religious  liberty.  Then  the 
civil  power  was  subject  to  a  concordat  with  the  Pope,  making 
it  practically  subordinate  to  the  ecclesiastical  power.  Now 
all  ecclesiastical  functionaries,  from  the  primate  down,  are 
subalterns  of  the  Government.  Then  all  ecclesiastical  prop- 
erty belonged  wholly  to  the  ecclesiastical  authorities.  Now 
it  belongs  to  boards  of  trustees  appointed  by  the  civil  au- 
thorities and  subject  to  the  civil  power.  Then  the  school 
laws  allowed  none  but  Catholics  to  teach  in  any  kind  of 
school,  or  even  give  private  lessons.  Now  a  Methodist  Pre- 
siding Elder  is  commissioned  to  organize  the  new  system 
of  normal  schools,  whose  directors  are  all  Protestants,  and 
whose  basal  principles,  defined  in  executive  decrees,  are  the 
great  principles  common  to  evangelical  Protestants  and 
evangelical  Catholics.  Then  the  Customs  House  confiscated 
Bibles  and  evangelical  books  presented  for  importation  and 
a  high  official  declared  that  so  it  should  be  while  Mount 
Chimborazo  stood  in  its  place.  Since  then,  tons  of  Bibles 
have  been  carried  over  the  shoulders  of  Mount  Chimborazo 
and  colportage  is  compassing  the  whole  land.  Then  both 
Houses  of  Congress  contained  priests  and  prelates  as  the 
ruling  elements.  Now  all  ecclesiastics  are  ineHgible  for  Con- 
gress. Then  the  Senate  expelled  a  liberal  because  he  had 
been  excommunicated.  Now,  at  the  last  session  of  Congress, 
the  Senate  rejected  proposals  toward  reconciling  Church 
and  State,  after  they  had  been  agreed  to  by  the  executive 
and  confirmed  by  the  Pope,  and  the  Lower  House  passed  a 
marriage  law,  putting  Protestants  and  Catholics  on  exact 
equality.! 

*  Letter  published  in  South  American  Magazine,  May,  1902,  116;  see 
article  "  Ecuador,  the  Republic  of  the  Sacred  Heart,"  Missionary  Re- 
view of  the  World,  November,  1901,  808-814;  Vincent,  "Around  and 
About  South  America,"   33;    Carpenter,  "South  America,"  71. 


THE   PROBLEM    OF   RELIGIOUS   LIBERTY     I37 

There  have  been  reactions  since  and  the  progress  has 
not  been  all  that  could  be  desired  but  the  country  has 
held  to  its  liberal  course. 

In  Colombia  after  a  liberal  regime  during  which 
the  country  made  steady  progress  and  there  was  relig- 
ious liberty  and  increasing  enlightenment,  tlie  clerical 
party  regained  power,  and  its  influence  has  resulted 
in  almost  ruining  the  land  and  in  subjecting  it  again 
to  medievalism.  The  Church  has  since  had  full  con- 
trol of  the  situation.  Roman  Catholicism  is  constitu- 
tionally declared  to  be  the  religion  of  the  people. 
There  is  a  formal  concordat  between  the  Papacy  and 
the  Government.  Art.  i  of  this  concordat  recognizes 
the  Roman  Catholic  Religion  as  that  of  Colombia,  and 
obliges  the  Government  to  protect  it,  and  cause  it  to  be 
respected,  in  all  its  rights.  Art.  2  reads :  "  The  Catho- 
lic Church  shall  preserve  its  full  liberty  and  independ- 
ence of  the  civil  power,  and  consequently  without  any 
intervention  from  the  civil  power,  it  can  exercise  free- 
ly all  its  spiritual  authority  and  ecclesiastical  jurisdic- 
tion, and  conform  its  own  government  to  its  own 
laws."  Art.  3  provides  "  The  canonic  legislation  is 
independent  of  the  civil  law  and  forms  no  part  of  it ; 
but  it  shall  be  solemnly  respected  by  all  the  authorities 
of  the  Republic."  Arts.  4,  5  and  6  grant  the  Church 
the  right  to  hold  property.  Art.  7  exempts  the  clergy 
from  civil  and  military  duty.  Art.  8  reads :  *'  The 
Government  is  obliged  to  adopt  in  the  laws  of  criminal 
procedure  dispositions  that  will  save  the  priestly  dig- 
nity, whenever  for  any  motive  a  minister  of  the 
Church  may  have  to  figure  in  a  process."  Art.  9 
grants  to  the  Church  the  right  to  collect  by  law  dues, 
etc.,  from  the  faithful  to  whom  service  is  rendered. 
Arts.  10  and  11  allow  the  Church  freely  to  establish 


138  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

religious  orders  and  to  govern  them  according  to  its 
own  regulations,  and  pledge  the  Church  to  co-operate 
with  the  Government  in  works  of  charity,  education 
and  missions.  Arts.  12,  13  and  14,  already  quoted 
in  connection  with  the  object  of  education  in  South 
America,  turn  over  the  control  of  education,  body 
and  soul,  to  the  Church. 

The  concordat  and  legislation  passed  in  accordance 
with  it  put  marriage  in  the  hands  of  the  Church,  and 
Colombian  Law  No.  30,  of  the  year  1888,  contains  the 
following  articles: 

Art.  34.  Marriage  contracted  in  conformity  with 
the  rites  of  the  Catholic  religion  annuls  "  ipso  jure  " 
the  purely  civil  marriage  contracted  before  by  the 
parties  with  other  persons. 

Art.  35.  For  merely  civil  effects  the  law  recognizes 
the  legitimacy  of  the  children  conceived  before  a  civil 
marriage  is  annulled  in  virtue  of  the  provision  of  the 
previous  article. 

Art.  36.  The  man  who  having  been  married  civilly, 
afterwards  marries  another  woman  according  to  the 
rites  of  the  Catholic  religion,  is  obliged  to  furnish 
proper  support  to  the  first  woman  and  the  children 
had  by  her  so  long  as  she  does  not  marry  according 
to  the  Catholic  rite. 

In  spite  of  all  this  there  is  religious  toleration  in  Co- 
lombia and  other  Churches  than  the  Roman  Catholic 
are  entitled  to  worship  freely  and  to  propagate  their 
faith. 

In  the  Argentine  the  second  article  of  the  consti- 
tution declares,  "  The  Federal  Government  supports 
the  Apostolic  Roman  Catholic  Church  "  and  the  presi- 
dent and  vice-president  must  belong  to  the  Roman 
Church.  Nevertheless  freedom  of  religion  is  guaran- 


THE   PROBLEM   OF   RELIGIOUS   LIBERTY    I39 

teed  to  all.  Uruguay  is  also  constitutionally  allied  to 
the  Roman  Church  and  the  Archbishop  in  Monte- 
video has  a  voice  in  the  Government,  but  there  is  no 
restriction  upon  any  form  of  religion.  In  Venezuela 
the  Roman  Church  is  the  state  religion  and  the  Gov- 
ernment contributes  to  its  support,  but  here  also  all 
Churches  are  tolerated.  In  every  South  American  re- 
public, therefore,  with  the  exception  of  Brazil,  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church  is  the  state  Church.  At  the 
same  time,  either  constitutionally  or  practically,  as  the 
result  of  the  assertion  of  the  right  of  religious  lib- 
erty, religious  toleration  is  accorded  and  the  freedom 
of  the  human  mind  to  face  the  fundamental  questions 
of  life  and  answer  them  unintimidated  and  uncoerced 
has  been  secured. 

The  Church  in  South  America  has  steadily  antag- 
onized this  right  of  religious  liberty.  It  refuses  still 
to  accept  civil  marriage.  Section  588  of  the  Acts  and 
Decrees  of  the  Council  of  Latin  American  Bishops  in 
Rome  in  1899  declares : 

Among  the  faithful  matrimony  cannot  be  granted,  except 
at  one  and  the  same  time  it  be  a  sacrament;  and  therefore, 
whatever  other  union  there  may  be  among  Christians,  of  a 
man  and  a  woman,  apart  from  a  sacrament,  even  if  made 
by  the  force  of  the  civil  law,  is  nothing  else  than  a  shameful 
and  pestilent  concubinage  (turpis  et  exitialis  concubinatus). 
.  .  .  Therefore,  let  the  faithful  be  taught  in  our  regions,  in  all 
of  which,  without  exception,  the  decree  "  Tametsi "  of  the 
Council  of  Trent  is  unquestionably  promulgated  and  received, 
that  no  marriage  is  contracted  without  the  presence  of  the 
proper  priest,  and  that  the  offspring  begotten  from  a  civil 
union  is  illegitimate  before  God  and  the  Church.^ 

And  this  opposition  to  civil  marriage  was  extended 
by  the  Church  in  South  America  to  every  measure  of 

*  Quoted  by  Lee,  "Religious  Liberty  in  South  America,"  19. 


140  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

religious  liberty  and  toleration.  It  is  easy  to  appre- 
ciate the  position  which  the  Church  held.  It  had 
always  controlled  the  situation.  It  believed  that  it 
alone  was  the  Church  of  God  and  that  it  owed  it  to 
men's  souls  to  hold  them  in  its  power.  But  it  forgot 
that  it  could  not  hold  them  except  by  free  persuasion 
and  that  the  attempt  to  lord  it  over  the  human  spirit 
is  the  sure  way  to  alienate  and  embitter  it.  That  the 
South  American  Church  should  attempt  to  bar  free 
religious  opinions  by  political  exclusion  is  not  to  be 
wondered  at  when  enlightened  American  Roman 
Catholics  like  Father  Phelan  of  ''  The  Western 
Watchman  "  hold  the  same  view : 

We  hold  it  as  a  part  of  enlightened  statesmanship  for 
them  to  protect  the  religious  unity  of  their  peoples  and  to 
prevent  the  preaching  of  any  non-  (Roman)  Catholic  faith 
by  foreigners.  Instead  of  enacting  laws  making  the  public 
exercise  of  an  imported  non-  (Roman)  Catholic  religion  pos- 
sible, they  should  take  effective  measures  to  suppress  it 
wherever  it  makes  its  offensive  appearance,  and  to  quaran- 
tine against  it  as  they  would  against  smallpox  and  yellow 
fever.i 

This  accurately  represents  the  attitude  which  the 
South  American  Church  has  taken  toward  religious 
liberty. 

1  "  The  Western  Watchman,"  February  6,  1898,  4.  Quoted  by  Lee, 
"  Religious  Liberty  in  South  America,"  66. 


CHAPTER   V 

PRESENT    RELIGIOUS    CONDITIONS 

South  America  is  claimed  as  a  Roman  Catholic  con- 
tinent. The  Roman  Catholic  religion  is  in  varying 
form  the  state  religion,  as  we  have  seen.  It  is  legally 
recognized  as  such  in  all  but  Brazil.  Wherever 
religious  data  are  given  in  the  government  cen- 
sus reports,  practically  the  entire  population  is  re- 
turned as  Roman  Catholic.^  Outside  of  Argentina, 
the  Roman  Catholic  Church  would  claim  and  the 
governments  would  assume,  and  the  men  of  the  vari- 
ous countries  would  for  census  purposes  declare,  that 
practically  the  entire  population  was  Roman  CathoHc. 
The  Roman  Catholic  Church  bears  accordingly  the 
full  church  responsibility  for  the  rehgious  conditions. 
For  three  centuries  she  has  been  in  complete  control 
of  the  field  and  has  had  such  opportunities  for  dom- 
inating the  life  of  the  continent  as  the  Protestant 
Church  separated  from  political  power  and  with  its 
sole  appeal  to  the  individual  intelligence  and  con- 
science has  never  possessed. 

*  In  Brazil  the  census  of  1890  divided  the  population  of  I4.333,9i5 
as  follows:  Roman  Catholics,  14,179,615;  Orthodox  Catholics  (Greek 
Church),  1,673;  Evangelical,  19,957;  Presbyterian,  1,317;  other  Prot- 
estant sects,  122,469;  Islamites,  300;  Positivists,  1,327;  without  cult, 
7,257.  The  Chile  census  of  1907  divided  the  total  population  of  3.249.- 
279  as  follows:  Roman  Catholic,  98.05  per  cent;  Protestant,  .98  per 
cent;  Pagan,  .75  per  cent;  no  religion,  .12  per  cent;  Mohammedan,  .04 
per  cent;  Confucianists,  .04  per  cent;  other  religions,  .02  per  cent. 
These  reports  are  typical. 

141 


142  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

The  Roman  Catholic  Church,  moreover,  accepts 
the  responsibiHty  for  South  America.  It  claims  the 
continent  as  a  Roman  Catholic  continent.  It  is  not  a 
mission  field  in  the  eyes  of  the  Vatican,  as  the  United 
States  until  recently  has  been.  The  Church  regards 
the  whole  population  of  South  America  as  composed 
of  its  children.  Father  Phelan  states  the  Roman 
Catholic  claim  as  to  Bolivia,  Peru  and  Ecuador  un- 
flinchingly : 

A  people  which  enjoys  oneness  of  belief  should  guard  it 
as  its  very  life.  It  should  prevent  the  pubHc  exercise  of  any 
religion  differing  from  the  one  it  sanctions,  without  inter- 
fering with  the  liberty  of  individuals  to  believe  and  practice 
in  private  any  religion  they  choose.  If  the  Spanish  Inquisi- 
tion did  no  more  than  punish  the  public  practice  of  a  hereti- 
cal faith,  it  would  never  have  received  the  condemnation  of 
(Roman)  Catholic  posterity.  The  three  republics  against 
whose  proscriptive  laws  Dr.  Lee  and  his  Methodist  brethren 
complain  are  Roman  Catholic  States,  whose  peoples  are  all 
(Roman)  Catholic,  and  among  whom  no  Protestants  are 
found.i 

These  facts  compel  us  candidly  to  acknowledge 
that  our  Protestant  Missions  in  South  America  are  to 
people  whom  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  calls  Ro- 
man CathoHcs.  And  these  Missions  must  be  justified 
on  this  basis.  If  this  can  be  done,  it  lays  a  heavy 
burden  of  responsibility  upon  the  Church  which 
allows  such  conditions  to  exist  and  covers  them  with 
its  name,  and  especially  upon  the  Roman  Catholic 
Churches  in  other  lands  which  are  willing  to  neglect 
and  even  to  defend  the  conditions  in  South  America. 

We  sought,  while  in  South  America,  to  investigate 
the  whole  question  fairly  and  to  see  all  that  we  could 
of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  and  its  work.     We 

*  Quoted  by  Lee,   "  Religious  Liberty  in  South  America,"  69. 


PRESENT   RELIGIOUS   CONDITIONS  I43 

visited  more  than  sixty  churches  and  cathedrals,  six 
hospitals,  under  the  care  of  Sisters,  four  schools  and 
seminaries,  talked  with  Roman  Catholic  priests,  lay- 
men and  nuns,  and  with  diplomatists,  lawyers  and 
doctors  and  business  men,  foreign  and  native,  who 
had  some  of  them  a  Christian  faith  and  some  no  re- 
ligion at  all.  In  the  conferences  with  missionaries  and 
natives,  we  always  raised  the  question  for  honest  an- 
swer :  Are  Protestant  Churches  in  South  America  jus- 
tifiable ?  The  religious  problem  is  the  one  great  sub- 
ject of  conversation  throughout  South  America.  As 
typical  of  the  common  views  a  summary  of  opinions 
set  forth  at  a  luncheon  of  leaders  of  religious  work,  in- 
cluding a  consul  and  a  leading  merchant,  in  Buenos 
Aires  and  the  terse  and  intense  reply  of  Professor 
Monteverde  of  the  University  of  Uruguay,  in  Monte- 
video will  suffice.  The  men  in  Buenos  Aires  said: 
''  The  work  of  Protestant  Churches  in  South  America 
is  warranted  ( i )  because  the  Roman  Catholic  Church 
which  we  know  here  is  not  in  any  true  sense  the  Chris- 
tian Church;  (2)  because  only  the  presence  of  the 
Protestant  Church  here  can  by  its  convicting  influence 
make  the  Roman  Church  moral  and  upright;  (3)  be- 
cause if  we  do  not  do  the  work  in  the  Argentine  now, 
we  shall  have  to  do  it  later  when  it  will  be  far  harder 
and  when  our  6,000,000  will  have  become  50,000,000; 
(4)  because  the  great  mass  of  men  in  the  Argentine 
are  actually  entirely  outside  the  Church,  without  any 
religion,  and  there  are  no  agencies  trying  to  reach 
them;  (5)  because  large  and  increasing  bodies  of 
Protestants  from  Great  Britain,  Germany,  Denmark, 
and  from  among  the  Waldensians  who  have  come 
here  will  be  lost  if  the  Protestant  Churches  do  not 
follow  them;   (6)  because  the  ideals  which  the  Ro- 


144  SOUTH    AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

man  Church  has  held  and  realized  in  South  Amer- 
ica are  intolerable  ideals  and  must  be  overthrown." 
Professor  Monteverde  answered:  "(i)  The  Roman 
Church  here  is  in  no  respect  the  same  as  that  Church 
in  the  United  States;  (2)  the  Church  has  given  its 
people  no  true  knowledge  of  religion;  (3)  it  forbids 
the  Bible  to  the  people;  (4)  its  moral  influence  is  not 
good;  (5)  the  great  mass  of  the  leading  people  in 
lUruguay,  in  government,  in  society,  in  the  intellectual 
jlife  of  the  community,  despise  it;  (6)  it  hates  inquiry 
md  intellectual  progress.  It  would  prefer  clubs  of 
infidels  to  Protestant  Churches.  I  speak  strongly  but 
'soberly,  with  a  full  knowledge  of  facts." 

We  did  not  lightly  accept  these  views  but  pressed 
all  the  sceptical  questions  of  which  we  could  think 
and  sought  to  see  the  best  in  the  great  religious  or- 
ganization which  has  covered  South  America.  What 
is  to  be  stated  now  is  a  careful  and  temperate  presen- 
tation, far  within  the  bounds  of  the  evidence.  A  great 
deal  that  is  said  in  criticism  of  the  South  American 
religious  system  is  to  be  left  out  of  account;  e.  g., 
its  raffles  and  gambling  devices  at  its  church  fairs, 
the  fireworks  at  its  religious  festivals,  on  which  it  is 
said  that  $40,000  are  spent  annually  in  Arequipa 
alone,  religious  indifference  among  men  and  petty  in- 
consistency in  its  priests  and  people.  As  to  the  for- 
mer, the  South  American  Church  covers  and  claims 
everything  and  such  foolish  and  sometimes  immoral 
amusements  as  attach  themselves  to  other  activities  in 
other  lands,  in  South  America  have  no  home  saye 
under  cover  of  the  Church;  and  as  to  the  latter,  our 
best  religion  is  not  sufficiently  consistent  to  demand 
perfect  consistency  in  any  other.  Also,  what  is  to  be 
said  is  said  of  the  South  American  Church  and  of  the 


1 


PRESENT    RELIGIOUS    CONDITIONS  I45 

society  which  it  claims  to  control  and  has  controlled 
for  more  than  three  centuries.  It  is  not  said  here  of 
the  Roman  Catholic  Church  in  the  United  States. 
Whether  what  is  said  is  true  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church  in  Spain  and  Italy  it  is  for  others  to  tell. 

In  considering  the  existing  religious  conditions  in 
South  America  we  must  recognize  the  liability  of  our 
Protestant  mind  to  biased  judgment.  The  South 
American  Roman  Catholic  view  of  Protestant  lands 
shows  us  how  easy  it  is  for  men  to  mislead  them- 
selves by  their  prejudices.^  Let  us  avoid  the  peril  of 
sweeping  generalizations  regarding  religion  in  South 
America  by  looking  specifically  at  facts  which  are 
susceptible  of  proof. 

What  are  the  conditions  for  which  the  Church 
must  bear  responsibility  f  i.  The  first  test  of  relig- 
ious conditions  is  to  be  found  in  the  facts  of  social 
life.  No  land  can  be  conceded  to  have  a  satisfactory 
religion  where  the  moral  conditions  are  as  they  have 
been  shown  to  be  in  South  America.  If  it  can  be 
proved  that  the  conditions  of  any  European  or  North 
American  land  are  as  they  are  in  South  America, 
then  it  will  be  proved  also  that  that  land  too  needs  a 
religious  reformation.  Christianity  is  not  opinion  or 
ritual.  It  is  life  and  that  life  must  utter  itself  in 
moral  purity  and  strength.  No  amount  of  theological 
statement  or  devout  worship  can  avail  to  take  the 
place  of  ethical  fruitage  in  social  purity  and  victory 
over  sin.  The  simple  fact  that  immorality  in  any 
land  abounds  is  all  the  evidence  required  to  justify 
the  presence  in  that  land  of  any  force  that  will  war 
against    immorality   and    strive    to   make    men    pure, 

*  See  article  on  "  Protestantism  "  in  La  Lus,  a  Roman  Catholic  peri- 
odical  of  Arequipa,   Peru,   May  20,    191 0. 


146  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

whether  the  land  be  the  United  States  or  South 
America  or  Hungary,  of  which  a  recent  visitor  writes 
of  the  student  classes :  "  The  moral  standards  are 
shocking.  The  saddest  thing  is  that  there  seems  to 
be  so  little  sense  of  shame  in  such  matters.  Impurity 
is  looked  upon  as  the  natural  thing.  The  low  ethical 
conditions  are  not  confined  to  Roman  Catholics.  A 
teacher  in  a  Protestant  college  said  to  me,  '  No  one 
ever  told  me  when  I  was  a  student  that  it  was  pos- 
sible to  live  a  pure  life.'  " 

It  is  not  true  to  say  that  the  present  moral  con- 
ditions in  South  America  exist  in  spite  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church  as  immorality  in  the  United  States 
exists  in  spite  of  the  Churches  here.  The  South 
American  Church  has  never  waged  any  such  war 
against  impurity  as  has  been  waged  in  lands  where 
Protestant  Churches  are  found,  or  in  Roman  Catholic 

)  Ireland.  It  has,  by  its  refusal  to  recognize  the  valid- 
ity of  civil  marriage  and  by  its  own  extortionate 
marriage  fees,  directly  fostered  illegitimacy.  Its 
priesthood,  as  will  appear,  has  come  out  of  the  life 
it  was  supposed  to  raise  and  has  accommodated  itself 
to  the  moral  standards  surrounding  it.  No  single 
agency  in  South  America  is  popularly  accused  of  a 
greater  share  in  the  responsibility  for  these  conditions 
than  the  confessional.  The  exclusive  control  of  the 
moral  life  of  a  continent  cannot  be  given  over  to  any 
institution  which,  having  practical  control  of  govern- 
ment for  more  than  two  centuries,  and  full  authority 
over  the  conditions  of  marriage  and  education,  shows 
as  a  result  of  its  stewardship  a  percentage  of  illegit- 
imacy ranging  from  fifteen  to  seventy  per  cent. 

2.  Religion  in  South  America  has  not  been  as  with 
us  the  motive  of  education  and  the  fountain  of  our 


PRESENT   RELIGIOUS   CONDITIONS         I47 

intellectual  life.  The  Protestant  missionary  enter- 
prise with  its  stimulus  to  education  and  its  appeal  to 
the  rational  nature  of  man  is  required  by  the  intellec- 
tual needs  of  South  America.  It  is  an  uneducated 
continent.  The  educational  systems  are  worthy  of  no 
small  praise,  but  they  want  conscience,  adaptation, 
moraHty;  and  especially  is  there  need,  as  we  have 
seen,  of  the  solid  education  of  the  masses  of  the 
people.  Recall  the  facts  as  to  illiteracy  which  have 
already  been  noted.  Agencies  which  will  bring  home 
to  these  nations  the  duty  of  educating  all  the  people 
and  of  doing  it  with  sincere  thoroughness,  of  setting 
right  standards,  and  of  relating  religion  rightly  to 
education,  are  justified  in  extending  their  help  to 
South  America.  The  Roman  Catholic  Church  never 
did  these  things.  Of  its  attitude  throughout  South 
America  in  the  eighteenth  century,  the  Hon.  W.  L. 
Scruggs,  formerly  American  Minister  to  Colombia, 
says  in  "  The  Colombian  and  Venezuela  Republics  " :  ^ 

It  had  prohibited  the  teaching  of  the  arts  and  sciences,  re- 
stricted education  to  the  Latin  grammar  and  the  catechism, 
and  Hmited  the  public  Hbraries  to  the  writings  of  the  Fathers 
and  to  works  on  civil  and  ecclesiastical  jurisprudence.  It 
had  even  prohibited  the  study  of  modern  geography  and 
astronomy,  and  forbade  the  reading  of  books  of  travel.  It 
discouraged  the  study  of  the  higher  mathematics,  and  con- 
demned all  philosophical  inquiry  and  speculation  as  heresy. 
It  had  even  placed  under  the  ban  such  innocent  fiction  as 
"  Gil  Bias  "  and  "  Robinson  Crusoe  " ;  and  there  had  never 
been  a  book,  or  a  magazine,  or  a  newspaper  in  the  whole 
country  that  was  not  conformed  to  the  strictest  rule  of  the 
Roman  Index.2 

Printing  presses  were  refused  even  to  cities  and  the 
influence    of    the    Church    was    thrown    against    the 

'  Quoted  by  McCabe,   "  Decay  of  the   Church  of   Rome,"    loo. 


148  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

spread  of  new  ideas.  There  were  notable  exceptions 
among  the  priests,  some  of  whom  were  among  the 
leaders  of  political  and  intellectual  progress,  but  the 
general  situation  is  what  Mr.  Scruggs  has  set  forth. 
And  since  the  era  of  freedom  began,  the  educational 
progress  which  has  been  made  has  been  in  spite  of 
the  Church  and  against  its  opposition.  It  has  had  its 
schools,  but  they  were  Church  schools,  teaching  the 
principles  of  the  Roman  Catholic  program  in  South 
America,  and  they  were  for  only  a  section  of  the 
community.  To  the  extent  that  the  priests  do  now 
provide  better  schools,  it  is  because  of  the  influence 
wielded  by  the  Protestant  spirit.  They  still  resist  in 
any  South  American  country  the  liberalization  of  gov- 
ernment and  education.  The  Roman  Church  having 
had  almost  full  control  of  the  education  of  a  continent 
for  three  centuries  must  be  held  responsible  for  such 
conditions  of  popular  ignorance  as  exist  in  South 
America.  Compare  the  record  of  the  Roman  Catho- 
lic Church  in  South  America  with  that  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  and  Protestant  Churches  in  the  United 
States.  With  the  opportunity  and  resources  of  the 
South  American  Church,  the  Protestant  Missions 
now  at  work  in  South  America  would  give  the  Con- 
tinent more  and  better  education  in  twenty  years  than 
it  has  received  in  the  last  three  hundred. 

And  the  intellectual  needs  of  South  America  are 
far  deeper  than  this.  The  Roman  Church  has  ful- 
filled no  ministry  to  her  intellectual  life.  She  has 
been  neither  a  teaching  nor  a  preaching  Church.  We 
heard  only  one  sermon  in  all  the  churches  which  we 
attended,  and  that  was  at  a  poor  little  Sunday  School* 
in  an  ornate  church  in  Buenos  Aires,  where  a  young 
priest  preached  from  the  pulpit  to  some  children  on 


PRESENT   RELIGIOUS   CONDITIONS         I49 

the  difference  between  faith  and  sight.  Only  occa- 
sionally are  sermons  preached,  and  those  not  on  the 
Gospel,  nor  the  great  problems  of  religious  faith  and 
moral  realities,  but  on  the  lives  of  saints.  We  heard 
of  only  a  few  Sunday  Schools  and  saw  but  one.  South 
America  is  full  of  scepticism  and  atheism  and  free 
thinking.  The  men  whom  the  census  calls  Catholics 
are  often  as  much  Taoists  as  they  are  Catholics,  and 
they  say,  when  asked,  that  they  are  not  Catholics,  but 
sceptics  and  made  such  by  the  Church.  "  I  was  born 
a  Catholic,"  one  man  told  us.  *'  My  father  was  very 
strict.  At  seven  I  knew  Latin  and  took  my  place  as 
a  boy  in  the  service  of  the  Church,  but  at  first  I  could 
not  understand.  Then  I  understood  and  saw  that  the 
whole  thing  was  false  and  left  it."  Meanwhile,  to 
meet  a  great  intellectual  problem,  the  problem  of 
intellectual  scepticism,  the  Church  has  been  doing 
almost  nothing,  either  in  the  way  of  apologetic  propa- 
ganda or  by  the  challenge  of  a  character-transforming 
moral  power. 

It  is  said  by  some  in  its  behalf  that  it  follows  a 
subtler  principle  and  holds  and  molds  society  by  its 
ministry  to  the  deeper  nature  through  its  institutions 
and  its  worship.  To  which  it  is  to  be  replied,  first, 
that  it  does  not  reach  the  men  of  South  America  in 
this  way.  They  have  little  to  do  with  its  institu- 
tions or  its  worship.  And,  secondly,  the  appeal  which 
the  Church  in  South  America  makes  to  awe  or  sen- 
sibility is  not  a  fine  or  worthy  appeal.  The  art  and 
aesthetic  taste  of  the  churches  and  the  church  worship 
are  simply  atrocious.  The  new  churches  and  their 
decorations  with  rare  exceptions  are  worse  than  the 
old.  There  are  some  splendid  old  buildings  like  the 
Church  of  San  Francisco  in  La  Paz,  one  of  the  most 


150  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

noble  churches  in  South  America,  the  soHd  dignity  of 
whose  unplastered  walls  and  arches  and  domes  not 
even  the  gilt  trappings  of  its  altars  and  the  outleaping 
steed  of  St.  James  can  spoil.  And  here  and  there  is  a 
good,  reverent  picture,  but  the  use  by  the  South  Amer- 
ican churches  of  the  symbols  of  religion  which  have 
such  immense  educational  power  is  in  the  worst  taste 
that  could  be  imagined.  The  result  is  seen  in  the 
general  want  of  real  reverence. 

The  Church  is  issuing  no  literature  dealing  with 
the  fundamental  problems  of  unbelief.  It  is  organiz- 
ing no  preaching  missions  to  educated  men.  It  is  not 
facing  the  great  issues  rationally  in  the  schools. 
Under  the  stimulus  of  external  influences  it  has  begun 
to  awake  in  a  few  places,  especially  in  Chile  and 
Brazil,  but  over  most  of  the  continent  the  old  condi- 
tions prevail.  The  Protestant  churches  are  bearing 
the  chief  burden  of  the  defense  of  supernatural  relig- 
ion against  rationalism  and  fanaticism  and  indiffer- 
ence. They  are  needed  to  meet  a  situation  which  the 
South  American  Church  has  not  met  and  cannot  meet 
because  it  has  helped  to  create  it. 

3.  The  South  American  religion  is  the  one  religion 
in  the  world  which  has  no  sacred  book  for  the  people. 
In  China  the  great  ambition  of  the  whole  nation  for 
centuries  has  been  to  master  the  Classics.  In  Moslem 
lands  the  Koran  is  the  most  exalted  of  all  books  and 
the  ideal  of  the  educated  man  has  been  to  be  able  to 
read  it  in  Arabic  in  its  miraculous  purity.  Hindus 
and  Buddhists  have  had  their  sacred  books  open  to 
all  who  would  study  them.  But  in  South  America  we 
have  had  the  phenomenon  of  a  land  in  the  complete 
control  of  a  Church  which  has,  as  far  as  it  could, 
sealed  its  sacred  Scriptures  to  the  people.    There  are 


PRESENT   RELIGIOUS    CONDITIONS  I5I 

Roman  Catholic  translations  of  the  Bible  both  in 
Spanish  and  in  Portuguese,  but  the  Church  has  dis- 
couraged or  forbidden  their  use.  Again  and  again 
priests  have  burned  the  Bibles  sold  by  colporteurs  or 
missionaries,  even  when  they  were  the  Roman  Catho- 
lic versions.  Again  and  again  they  have  denounced 
the  missionaries  for  circulating  the  Scriptures  and 
have  driven  them  out  of  villages  where  they  were  so 
employed,  and  have  even  secured  their  arrest.  It  is 
safe  to  say  that  not  one  Roman  Catholic  out  of  a 
thousand  in  South  America  would  ever  have  seen  a 
Bible  but  for  the  Protestant  missionary  movement. 
The  priests  themselves  are  ignorant  of  it.  In  only 
one  church  did  we  find  a  copy  of  it  though  there 
were  service  books  by  the  dozen.  And  in  that  one 
church  it  had  apparently  been  confiscated  in  the  con- 
fessional. The  Bible  is  not  read  in  the  Roman  Catho- 
lic Churches  and  there  are  no  Bible  schools  for  its 
study.  The  Protestant  missionary  effort,  however, 
has  scattered  millions  of  Bibles  over  South  America 
and  not  only  brought  the  book  with  its  vivifying 
power  to  the  people,  but  actually  forced  the  South 
American  Church  to  take  up  a  different  attitude.  El 
Chileno,  a  clerical  paper  much  read  by  the  laboring 
class  in  Chile,  and  El  Mercurio,  the  leading  Chilean 
newspaper,  now  print  portions  of  the  Scriptures  daily 
with  Roman  Catholic  notes  upon  them.  The  Roman 
Catholic  Church  in  Brazil  has  also  modified  its  posi- 
tion to  meet  the  situation  created  by  the  Protestant 
circulation  of  a  book  approved  by  the  Church  and  yet 
forbidden  by  it.  Mr.  Tucker,  the  agent  of  the  Ameri- 
can Bible  Society  in  Brazil,  wrote  in  1908: 

In  the  beginning  of  our  work  in  Brazil  we  had  to  face 
constantly  the  fact  that  the  Catholic  Church  positively  pro- 


152  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

hibited  the  people  from  reading  the  Scriptures  and  threat- 
ened with  excommunication  any  who  dared  to  do  so.  Even 
the  priests  in  former  years  had  to  ask  for  a  special  dispen- 
sation if  they  wished  to  read  and  study  the  Bible  for  a  time. 
I  have  visited  many  priests  who  did  not  have  a  copy  of  the 
Bible,  and  the  few  that  do  exist  are  in  Latin. 

We  have  before  reported  that  the  first  Catholic  Congress, 
which  met  a  few  years  ago  in  the  city  of  Bahia,  discussed 
the  question  as  to  what  should  now  be  done,  seeing  that 
their  prohibitions,  excommunications,  persecutions,  and  Bible- 
burnings,  had  not  availed  to  put  a  stop  to  the  Protestant 
circulation  of  the  Scriptures,  which  is  all  the  time  increas- 
ing. The  Franciscan  monks  were  authorized  to  revise  and 
print  the  Figueiredo  translation  of  the  four  Gospels.  .  .  . 
Later  appeared  a  Harmony  of  the  Gospels,  the  work  of  one 
of  the   most  cultured   priests   in   Brazil.  .  .  . 

Early  in  the  present  year  a  priest  of  the  Mission  in  the 
College  of  the  Immaculate  Conception  at  Rio  de  Janeiro 
completed  his  translation  of  the  four  Gospels  from  the  Vul- 
gate. These  he  has  printed  and  placed  on  sale,  together  with 
Sarmento's  translation  of  Carriere's  French  paraphrase  of 
the  Acts  of  the  Apostles. 

The  Archbishop  of  Rio,  who  is  now  a  Cardinal, 
the  first  in  South  America,  writes  a  preface  com- 
mending this  work.  But  in  spite  of  these  facts,  the 
circulation  of  the  Bible  is  still  discouraged  or  pro- 
hibited by  the  South  American  system  and  no  effort 
is  made  in  Brazil  by  the  Roman  Church  to  act  upon 
the  commendation  of  the  Cardinal,  The  Council  of 
Latin  American  Bishops  in  Rome  in  1899  particularly 
condemned  the  Protestant  vernacular  version  of  the 
Bible,  published  by  the  Bible  Societies.  The  Arch- 
bishop of  Bogota  in  his  circular  issued  in  1909, 
already  quoted,  declared  that  all  who  received  or 
had  in  their  possession  "  Bibles  or  books  of  whatever 
kind  which  are  sold  or  distributed  by  Protestant  mis- 
sionaries or  their  agents  or  by  other  book  sellers  are 


PRESENT   RELIGIOUS    CONDITIONS         I53 

absolutely  obliged  to  deliver  such  books  to  their 
parish  priest  or  to  surrender  them  to  the  ecclesiastical 
tribunal  of  the  Archbishopric."  His  people  could  not 
retain  copies  even  of  the  Roman  Catholic  versions  of 
the  Scriptures  which  are  often  distributed  by  the 
missionaries.  Only  a  few  months  ago,  the  priest  in 
the  church  on  the  main  plaza  in  Chilian  in  Chile,  where 
the  great  markets  are  held,  boasted  openly  in  church 
of  having  burned  seven  Bibles.  The  circulation  of  the 
Bible  in  South  America  is  still  dependent  upon  the 
Bible  Societies  and  the  Protestant  missionaries.  If  it 
were  not  for  them,  the  people  of  South  America  would 
to-day  be  without  the  Bible.  Is  it  wrong  to  give  it  to 
them?  Must  we  justify  a  movement  without  which 
40,000,000  people  would  be  ignorant  of  the  Bible? 

4.  One  of  the  most  pitiful  facts  in  the  religious 
situation  in  South  America  has  been  the  character  of 
the  South  American  priesthood.  Drawn  either  from 
the  lower  orders  of  the  native  population  or  from 
those  elements  of  the  priesthood  in  other  lands  which 
were  least  desired  there,  the  clergy  of  South  America 
have  represented  the  low-water  mark  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  priesthood.  There  have  been  exceptions.  In 
Chile  the  priesthood  has  been  recruited  in  no  small 
measure  from  good  families  and  it  is  in  large  part  an 
able  and  efficient  body,  numbering  many  zealous  and 
capable  men.  In  recent  years  also,  with  a  great  in- 
rush of  friars  expelled  from  the  Philippines  and  dis- 
placed men  from  Spain,  Portugal  and  France,  there 
have  come  also  many  shrewd,  devout  and  earnest 
men,  and  throughout  South  America  the  European 
sisterhoods  have  rendered  a  loving  and  devoted  serv- 
ice of  the  type  known  the  world  around.  With 
these  allowances,  however,  and  recognizing  the   ef- 


154  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

fort  which  the  Church  is  now  making  to  regain  the 
lost  ground  and  to  abate  the  gross  abuses  of  the  past, 
it  still  remains  true  that  the  moral  character  of  the 
priesthood  has  not  presented  to  South  America  the 
object  lesson  of  purity.  The  friendly  visitor  fights  as 
long  as  possible  against  accepting  the  opinion  univer- 
sally held  throughout  South  America  regarding  the 
priests.  However  convinced  we  may  be  that  the  en- 
forced celibacy  of  the  clergy  is  a  wrong  and  evil 
principle,  we  like  to  believe  that  the  men  who  take 
such  a  vow  are  true  to  it  and  that  while  the  Church 
loses  by  it  irreparably  and  infinitely  more  than  she 
gains,  she  does  gain,  nevertheless,  a  pure  and  devoted, 
even  if  a  narrow  and  impoverished  service. 

But  the  deadly  evidence  spread  out  all  over  South 
America,  confronting  one  in  every  district  to  which 
he  goes,  evidence  legally  convincing,  morally  sicken- 
ing, proves  to  him  that,  whatever  may  be  the  case  in 
other  lands,  in  South  America  the  stream  of  the 
Church  is  polluted  at  its  fountains.  We  have  spoken 
of  the  immorality  of  South  America  as  justifying 
Protestant  missions.  The  Roman  Catholic  Church  in 
South  America  must  be  held  in  no  small  measure  re- 
sponsible for  the  immorality.  Not  wholly.  Those 
countries  are  tropical.  The  people  are  hot  blooded. 
There  is  human  nature  with  its  untamed  passion.  In 
our  temperate  lands  there  is  immorality  for  which  we 
would  not  admit  that  our  churches  are  to  blame. 
When  this  has  been  said,  however,  there  are  two 
more  things  to  be  added.  It  is  the  business  of  the 
Church  to  protest  unceasingly  against  immorality  by 
her  preaching.  It  is  her  business  to  protest  against  it 
by  her  life.  All  Churches  in  our  land  have  done  this. 
The  South  American  system  has  not  done  it.    It  has 


PRESENT   RELIGIOUS   CONDITIONS         1 55 

waged  no  uncompromising  and  deathless  warfare 
against  sin.  It  has  had  no  personal  purity  meetings 
for  boys  and  young  men.  It  has  not  cried  aloud.  It 
has  held  its  voice  and  been  dumb,  before  an  immo- 
rality of  which  China  would  be  ashamed.  And  it 
has  been  silent  because  it  could  not  speak.  "  I  think 
that  one-half  of  our  priests  have  been  true  and  kept 
themselves  pure,"  said  a  young  Spanish  priest  in 
Chile,  a  father  in  a  French  order,  to  the  man  who 
introduced  us  to  him.  He  and  another  priest  were 
the  only  men  we  met  who  took  so  favorable  a  view. 
Many  said  flatly  that  they  did  not  believe  that  there 
was  one  pure  priest.  Such  a  statement  is  wildly 
false,  but  it  is  terrible  when  the  men  of  a  continent  can 
say  such  things  about  their  religious  teachers.  Some 
of  those  who  knew  most  priests  said  sadly  that  they 
knew  few  who  they  were  sure  were  really  good 
men.  A  Jesuit  priest  told  us  in  Colombia  that  out 
of  eighteen  priests  whom  he  knew  personally,  only 
one  was  a  pure  man.  We  do  not  accept  so  dark 
a  view.  There  are  many  good  priests,  but  allowing 
for  these  and  even  assuming  that  the  young  Chilean 
priest's  judgment  is  just,  the  common  opinion  through- 
out South  America  is,  that  the  priesthood  is  morally 
corrupt,  and  the  fact  of  its  corruption  is  so  patent 
that  its  influence,  instead  of  being  against  immorality 
is  itself  evil.  Specific  details  are  miserable  but  they 
can  be  supplied  with  parish  and  name.  Detailed 
/  proof  could  be  gathered  that  would  fill  volumes  but 
it  must  suffice  to  say  that  the  vow  of  purity  is  a  vio- 
i  lated  vow  with  a  great  proportion  of  the  priesthood 
;  and  that  thousands  of  the  illegitimate  children  in 
.  South  America  have  priests  for  their  fathers. 

And  it  is  not  by  the  character  of  the  priests  alone 


156  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

that  the  South  American  system  fosters  immoraHty. 
It  does  it  by  the  confessional  which  many  men  will 
not  allow  their  daughters  or,  if  they  can  help  it,  their 
wives  to  attend;  in  which,  men  say,  impure  thoughts 
are  suggested  to  their  children  and  improper  questions 
asked  of  their  wives,  because  priests  have  to  ask  them 
according   to   the   regulations   of   the   Church   which 
were  prepared  by  that  Cardinal  Liguori,  himself  a 
good  man,  who  said,  "  The  most  virtuous  priests  are 
constrained  to  fall  at  least  once  a  month."    That  is  a 
dangerous   acknowledgment   under   which  to   set   up 
the  confessional.    In  Colombia  we  met  a  priest  greatly 
perplexed  as   to  his   own   duty,   who   showed   us   a 
manuscript  which  he  had  written  in  Spanish,  entitled, 
"  The  Word  of  Common  Sense."    It  was  the  strong- 
est, most  sweeping  denunciation  we  have  ever  read 
of  the  Church.     He  described  the  moral  condition  of 
the  priesthood  as  he  knew  it,  set  forth  the  political 
intrigues  of  the  Church,  and  dealt  with  strong  and 
unqualified  condemnation  with  the  confessional  as  a 
source  of  deep  immorality  and  of  family  disruption. 
Whatever   limitations,   moreover,   may   surround   the 
idea  of  confession  and  indulgence  in  the  mind  of  the 
Church,   the  people   understand  that  by  the  confes-i 
sional  they  are  clear  of  all  past  sin,  which  the  Church  \ 
has  now  taken  over,  and  that  if  faithful  to  the  Church | 
they  may  do  what  they  like  and  be  sure  of  salvation./' 
The    Church    makes    it    possible    also    for    whoever 
wishes  to  dispose  of  young  children.     In  many  con- 
vents there  are  revolving  barrels  set  in  the  walls  or 
in  some  window  and  so  arranged  that  a  small  door 
can  be  opened,  the  child  placed  in  the  barrel  and  the 
barrel  revolved,  ringing  a  bell  which  brings  a  sister 
to  take  the  foundling  while  the  bearer  can  escape 


PRESENT   RELIGIOUS   CONDITIONS         157 

without  identification.  Why  are  such  things  made 
easy  by  the  Church? 

Everyone  speaks  well  of  the  sisters  and  nuns,  who 
represent  what  is  noblest  and  best  in  the  Church ;  but 
why  do  they  too  do  things  in  the  dark?  And  the 
priesthood  is  not  only  a  bad  influence  morally,  it  is  so 
mercenary  that  its  greed  is  a  scandal.  In  part  its 
mercenary  character  is  forced  upon  it.  It  is  the 
method  of  support  which  has  grown  up.  The  Pas- 
sionist  Fathers  in  Buenos  Aires  lamented  that  the 
necessity  of  raising  the  support  of  priests  by  charges 
for  baptisms  and  marriages  and  masses  had  brought 
the  priesthood  into  disrepute.  Refined  men  would 
doubtless  arrange  the  matter  in  unobjectionable  ways, 
but  the  priests  in  the  main  come  from  the  coarser 
classes  of  the  people,  they  must  often  come  from 
very  low  classes,  for  the  worst  faces  one  sees  in 
South  America,  the  most  sensual  and  animal  and 
gross,  as  well  as  some  of  the  most  wistful  and  attract- 
ive, are  the  faces  of  priests.  Is  the  ministry  of  the 
Gospel  to  be  left  to  this  priesthood?  Are  the  people 
of  South  America  to  receive  the  chalice  of  life  from 
their  hands?  Is  there  any  Church  in  the  world  or 
any  section  of  any  Church  which  will  deny  the  duty 
of  Christianity  to  redeem  this  situation  in  South 
America?  If  it  is  thought  that  perhaps  the  situation 
as  to  the  character  of  priests  has  been  stated  here  too 
severely,  a  few  testimonies  from  the  innumerable  wit- 
nesses who  might  be  summoned  will  suffice: 

(i)  Cox's  "  Life  of  Cardinal  Vaughan."  Vaughan, 
who  was  later  the  highest  Roman  Catholic  ecclesiastic 
in  England,  visited  South  America  in  the  sixties 
and  wrote  of  what  he  saw  in  New  Granada :  ''The 
monks  are  in  the  lowest  state  of  degradation  and  the 


158  SOUTH   AMERICAN   PROBLEMS 

suppression  of  them  would  be  an  act  of  divine 
favor."  "  To  Herbert  Vaughan,"  says  his  biographer/ 
*'  shocked  at  what  he  heard  on  all  sides  of  the  state 
of  the  clergy,  the  persecution  which  had  now  gone 
on  for  some  time  (the  Government  at  this  time  had 
forbidden  the  priests  to  say  mass  or  celebrate  any  of 
the  sacraments)  seemed  less  a  scourge  than  a  provi- 
dential chastisement.  Among  graver  matters  he  notes : 
*  Priests  scandalize  the  people  much  by  cock  fighting. 
I  have  been  several  times  told  of  priests  taking  their 
cocks  into  the  sacristy,  hurrying  disrespectfully 
through  their  mass  and  going  straight  off  from  the 
altar  to  the  cock  pit.  They  are  great  gamblers.'  " 
And  there  were  "  graver  matters." 

(2)  John  R.  Spears  in  the  New  York  Sun: 

The  common  charge  among  foreigners  that  they  (the 
priests)  are  licentious  ought  to  be  taken  up  first  of  all.  Some 
facts  were  related  to  me  showing  that  their  notions  of 
morality  differ  from  the  notions  entertained  by  preachers  in 
the  United  States.  At  David,  in  the  Isthmus  of  Panama, 
the  people  told  me  their  priest  was  to  be  deposed  because  he 
was  attentive  to  too  many  women.  .  .  .  When  I  asked  if  it 
was  merely  a  question  of  his  taking  liberties  with  "  too 
many,"  the  reply  was  in  the  affirmative.  I  saw  for  myself 
in  various  towns,  beginning  at  Santiago  de  Veraguas,  that 
the  priests  usually  had  housekeepers  who  were  handsome 
women,  and  that  there  were  children  in  the  houses  who  called 
the  housekeeper  mother,  although  the  woman  was  said  to 
be  neither  a  widow  nor  a  wife.  In  Alajuela,  Costa  Rica, 
a  photographer  from  California,  who  said  he  was  a  faith- 
ful member  of  the  Church,  came  to  me  especially  to  ask 
that  I  would  expose  the  condition  of  affairs  there.  The 
priest,  he  said,  made  no  pretence  of  denying  the  paternity 
of  his  children.  The  Californian  was  plainly  shocked  by  such 
a  condition  of  affairs. 

At  a  little  town  where  I  remained  over  night  on  my  way 

*  125. 


PRESENT    RELIGIOUS    CONDITIONS         I59 

from  Punta  Arenas,  Costa  Rica,  to  San  Jose,  the  landlady  was 
very  indignant  because  the  village  priest  had  performed  a 
marriage  ceremony  for  a  man  who  wanted  to  wed  a  woman 
who  had  been  married  by  civil  process  to  another  man  from 
whom  she  had  but  recently  parted.  There  had  been  no 
divorce.  The  priest  said  the  civil  marriage  was  not  bind- 
ing. Not  to  multiply  instances  of  this  kind,  it  is  likely  that 
no  one  will  deny  that  a  majority  of  the  priests  of  the  Span- 
ish Main  hold  their  pledge  of  sexual  purity  very  lightly.  I 
asked  the  Alajuela  photographer  if  the  conduct  of  the  priest 
there  had  had  the  effect  of  leading  the  women  to  make  mer- 
chandise of  themselves,  and  he  replied  that  it  had  not,  but 
it  had  led  to  very  many  unions  without  either  a  civil  or  a 
religious  marriage  ceremony.  And  that,  I  am  sure,  is  the 
effect  throughout  the  Spanish  Main.  In  fact,  I  believe  that 
it  has  led  the  people  very  close  to  a  mental  condition  where 
they  regard  the  marriage  service  as  a  form  only. 

(3)  Frederick  Palmer  in  ''Central  America,"  on 
conditions  such  as  prevail  there: 

Only  satire  would  call  Central  America  Christian  to-day. 
Once  it  was  Christian,  but  now  its  masses  are  lapsing  into 
paganism,  even  as  the  Haitian  negroes  have  lapsed  into  Afri- 
can voodooism.  .  .  . 

In  Guatemala,  Honduras  and  Nicaragua  the  priesthood  has 
fallen  into  the  lowest  state  of  any  countries  in  Christendom 
not  in  the  Caribbean  region.  The  bayonet  no  longer  con- 
siders it  as  a  factor  to  be  reckoned  with.  It  has  neither 
political  power  nor  religious  power  of  any  account.  ...  In 
morals  the  people  have  the  examples  of  their  leaders,  .  .  . 
Some  of  the  mountain  tribes  have  never  been  civilized,  though 
they  are  within  three  days  of  New  Orleans,  and  they  are 
better  off  than  the  ones  who  were  Christians  and  have  lapsed 
into  paganism.! 

(4)  Lea's  "History  of  Sacerdotal  Celibacy": 

In  spite  of  the  Nicaean  canon,  on  which  the  rule  of  celibacy 
has  virtually  rested,  the  Church,  after  a  struggle  of  more 
than  a  thousand  years,  was  forced  to  admit  the  "  subintro- 

^^  69-2  72. 


I60  SOUTH   AMERICAN   PROBLEMS 

ducta  mulier"'  as  an  inmate  of  the  priest's  domicile.  The 
order  of  Nature  on  this  point  refused  so  obstinately  to  be 
set  aside  that  the  Council  of  Trent  finally  recognized  women 
as  a  necessary  evil,  and  only  sought  to  regulate  the  necessity 
by  forbidding  those  in  holy  orders  from  keeping  in  their 
houses  or  maintaining  any  relations  with  concubines  or 
women   liable   to   suspicion.  .  .  . 

The  careful  provisions  as  to  the  age  and  character  of  these 
"  Marthas,"  and  the  prohibition  of  manifestations  of  undue 
familiarity  with  them — especially  in  public — are  scrupulously 
enumerated  in  the  latest  assembly  of  Catholic  prelates,  the 
Plenary  Council  of  Latin  America  held  in  Rome  in  1899.^ 
These  precautions  are  not  uncalled  for  if  there  is  truth  in 
the  statement  that  statistics  submitted  to  the  council  showed 
that  in  Latin  America,  of  18,000  priests  3,000  were  living  in 
regular  wedlock,  4,000  in  concubinage  with  their  so-called 
housekeepers,  and  some  1,500  in  relations  more  or  less  open 
with  women  of  doubtful  reputation.2 

(5)  Juan  Bautista  Castro,  Archbishop  of  Caracas 
and  Venezuela,  in  a  pastoral  letter  published  in  full 
in  a  leading  newspaper  of  Caracas,  which  introduces 
the  letter  with  the  remark :  "  We  have  always  thought 
that  priests,  as  men,  have  their  weaknesses,  paying 
thus  their  tribute  to  Mother  Nature,  and  to-day  the 
most  illustrious  Lord  Archbishop  has  taken  upon  him- 
self to  ratify  our  behefs:" 

The  clergy  have  fallen  into  profound  contempt  because  of 
events  which  have  placed  them  on  the  declivity  which  leads ' 
to  all  manner  of  failure.  There  are  no  calls  for  the  clergy, 
and  this  contempt  for  them,  so  general,  is  one  cause  for  this 
lack.  Impotence,  sterility,  decadence,  moral  and  spiritual — 
all  these,  accompanied  by  the  strident  and  persecuting  words 
of  our  adversaries — these  form  the  true  and  striking  picture 
presented  to  all  who  deign  for  a  moment  to  contemplate 
it.  .  .  . 

We  have  spoken  much  of  the  persecutions  of  which  the 

lA.   &  D.    Cone.   PI.   Am,   Lat.   281. 
2  Macmillan,    1907,   Vol.  II,   341, 


PRESENT   RELIGIOUS   CONDITIONS         l6l 

work  of  Jesus  Christ  has  been  the  victim  in  our  land — but 
we  speak  very  little  or  not  at  all  of  our  sins,  and,  more  par- 
ticularly, of  the  sins  of  the  clergy.  .  .  . 

Scandal  in  the  parish  or  town  takes  on  unmeasured  propor- 
tions:  the  dishonored  priest  is  lost  once  for  all,  t'ne  enemies 
of  the  Church  triumph  because  of  the  shameful  fall,  and 
good  souls  retire  to  groan  in  secret  and  to  cry  to  the  Lord 
to  free  them  from  this  abomination.  .  .  .  And  even  if  the 
sin  is  hidden,  yet  is  it  revealed  through  every  guise  in  the 
dead  parish,  the  deserted  church,  in  the  tiresome  preaching, 
unfruitful  works  of  mere  routine,  without  fervor  or  piety, 
in  the  house  of  the  priest,  who  breathes  only  a  worldly  at- 
mosphere, in  his  reading,  in  his  occupations  and  the  tedium 
at  the  things  of  God.  Why  do  we  note  the  sudden  spiritual 
decline  of  a  priest  who  until  yesterday  was  active  and  de- 
vout? Why  do  we  see  him  destroying  little  by  little  that 
which  promised  to  be  a  fruitful  apostolate,  but  now  ap- 
proaches mysterious  and  mournful  ruin  ?  Ah !  if  we  could 
penetrate  the  veil  of  his  secret  life,  we  should  know  that  the 
one  cause  of  this  humiliating  and  opprobrious  decay  is  in 
nothing  other  than  the  hidden  corruption  of  his  heart  and 
life.  .  .  .  And  yet  there  are  priests  who  only  rarely  go  to 
confession,  and  others  who  never  confess  at  all !  There  are 
those  who  select  easy-going  confessors  who  pass  over  every- 
thing and  then  give  absolution;  and  there  are  not  wanting 
others  whose  confession  is  nothing  more  than  a  sad  routine 
practised  between  one  sin  and  another,  to  their  own  decep- 
tion— well  known  is  the  life  they  lead,  and  where  it  will 
end.  .  .  . 

Nearly  all  the  clergy  of  the  archdiocese  of  Caracas  is  pa- 
rochial; there  are  more  than  one  hundred  parishes,  and 
to-day  all  are  occupied  by  pastors,  with  few  exceptions — 
those  which  have  become  mere  hamlets.  And  yet,  why  does 
ignorance  of  religion  continue  to  brutalize  and  degrade  more 
and  more  these  people?  Why  exist  so  many  parishes  which 
are  true  cemeteries  of  souls  dead  to  God,  in  despite  of  the 
fact  that  there  stands  the  church  edifice,  there  is  Jesus  Christ 
in  the  Sacrament  Adorable,  there  is  the  priest  with  his  mar- 
velous powers  to  sanctify  the  souls?  .  .  .  The  only  reason 
is  that  the  parish  priest  does  not  faithfully  perform  his 
duties,  he  does  not  lay  hold  upon  and  generously  shoulder 


l62  SOUTH   AMERICAN   PROBLEMS 

the  charge  he  has  accepted,  and,  as  many  Christians  who 
take  of  the  Gospel  only  so  much  as  suits  them,  so  he  takes 
up  only  those  duties  which  do  not  trouble  him  much — more 
than  all,  those  that  produce  most  income.  They  do  not 
preach,  or,  if  so,  it  is  only  to  tire  and  annoy  the  few  hearers. 
What  living  word  could  come  from  a  sacerdotal  soul  dead 
to  the  palpitations  of  the  grace  and  the  activity  of  pastoral 
zeal?  There  is  no  catechism  class — and  if  there  is,  it  is 
in  this  sense :  that  this  work  is  for  the  priest  a  disagreeable 
task,  for  which  he  has  neither  intelligence  nor  heart,  and 
which  he  ends  by  handing  it  over  to  the  school  or  to  the 
women !  Service,  attention  and  care  and  frequent  visiting 
of  the  sick,  in  order  to  lead  them  as  by  the  hand  to  the  gates 
of  eternity,  is  an  unknown  thing  to  him.  Poor  sick  ones 
that  fall  into  the  hands  of  such  priests !  And  this,  when 
they  do  not  abandon  the  sufferers  entirely  under  any  mere 
pretext  to  escape  going  to  their  aid  in  their  extremity  su- 
preme. .  .  .  And  we  will  not  say  more,  for  we  should  be 
interminable,  if  we  were  to  enumerate  everything.  .  .  . 

We  have  now  completed  a  grave  duty ;  we  have  said  what 
was  necessary  in  view  of  the  spiritual  disasters  which  here 
and  there  too  often  appear  in  our  clergy;  we  feel  the  relief 
of  one  who  has  lightened  his  shoulders  of  a  heavy  load ;  this 
load  was  the  necessity  of  pointing  out  the  sins  which  under- 
mine our  Church  and  weaken  the  power  of  the  priesthood. 
Easily  may  our  words  meet  with  hardness  and  blindness, 
which  form  the  most  formidable  judgment  that  God  exer- 
cises, even  in  this  world,  against  the  priest  who  goes  astray; 
we  have  thought  this  over  well,  and  our  prayer  before  the 
Lord  has  been  intense  and  prolonged  that  He  would  pene- 
trate this  darkness  with  His  light,  and  that  where  sin  has 
long  abounded,  grace  may  much  more  abound  to  salvation.^ 

(6)  El  Mercurio,  the  leading  newspaper  in  Chile, 
and  a  clerical  organ,  in  an  article  entitled  "  Peruvian 
or  Chilean  Clergy,"  after  praising  the  character  and 
influence  of  the  Chilean  clergy,  proceeds  to  assert 
that  "  not  in  one  case  but  in  many,  the  Peruvian 
priests  have  committed  crimes  of  public  scandal  and 
^Bl  Constitucional,  December  7,   1908. 


PRESENT   RELIGIOUS   CONDITIONS         163 

have  given  the  inhabitants  of  that  province  (Tacna) 
disgraceful  scenes!"  It  calls  them  "notoriously  im- 
moral," declares  that  "  the  scandals  of  the  Peruvian 
priests  have  been  proven  and  documented  "  and  asks, 
"  Should  we  prefer  the  clergy  of  bad  conduct  which 
that  same  bishop  (of  Arequipa)  has  kept  in  Tacna 
and  which  is  the  only  cause  of  the  deep  moral  de- 
cadence of  the  people  in  that  province — that  clergy 
which  keeps  the  inhabitants  of  the  interior  in  a  semi- 
savage  state,  who  entirely  neglect  their  ministerial 
work  ?  "  ^  There  is  a  political  bias  here,  but  what- 
ever competence  Roman  Catholics  allow  to  El  Mer- 
curio's  judgment  of  priests  must  attach  to  its  judg- 
ment on  Peruvians  as  well  as  on  Chileans 

(7)  S.  R.  Gammon  in  ''  The  Evangelical  Invasion 
of  Brazil:" 

When  those  who  should  be  the  moral  guides  and  examples 
of  the  people  are  men  of  depraved  lives,  men  of  unblushing 
immorality,  this  example  of  moral  turpitude  must  react  pow- 
erfully on  the  lives  of  the  people  themselves.  Much  has 
been  said  and  written  of  the  corruption  of  the  Romish  priests 
in  South  American  countries,  and  the  phrase  "  as  immoral 
as  a  Brazilian  priest  "  may  be  found  in  European  literature, 
as  though  these  were  more  proverbially  depraved.  They 
probably  do  not  merit  this  distinction  as  compared  with  the 
priests  of  other  Latin  American  countries,  but  surely  the 
state  of  things  among  them  is  bad  enough.  Concubinage, 
open  and  unblushing,  is  common  among  them;  and  refined 
sensibilities  are  shocked  at  the  bare  suggestion  of  the  half 
of  the  sad  story  of  moral  depravity.  Celibacy  and  the  con- 
fessional have  dragged  the  priesthood  into  depths  of  iniquity 
that  are  inconceivable,  and  along  with  themselves  they  drag 
down  to  their  level  thousands  of  victims.  The  following 
passage  from  Sefior  Barbosa's  pen,  is  most  delicately  put, 
but  it  suggests  plainly  what  it  would  require  volumes  to  nar- 
rate in   full  detail :   "  The  most   formidable  theater   for  the 

*  Issue  of  March  6,  1910. 


l64  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

mission  of  a  Jesuit  is  the  family.  The  wife  and  the  child 
easily  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  priest,  and,  as  happens  in 
all  Roman  Catholic  countries,  the  domestic  priesthood  of 
the  father  is  entirely  lost.  How  many  heart-breaking  sor- 
rows are  hidden  from  curious  eyes  under  the  domestic  roof, 
calamities  that  embitter  the  noblest  affections,  destroy  all 
lawful  rights,  and  incapacitate  so  many  souls.  How  many 
of  these  calamities,  endured  in  silence  and  carefully  hidden 
from  the  public  gaze,  have  left  in  our  lives  deep  and  painful 
furrows.  .  .  .  Confidence,  which  is  the  necessary  privilege 
of  the  husband,  the  essential  bond  of  union  between  two 
souls,  is  shared  with  the  confessor,  or  rather,  is  entirely 
usurped  by  him."  .  .  . 

Many  of  the  superiors  do  not  want  the  evils  remedied, 
because  they  are  part  and  parcel  of  the  corruption;  many 
others,  who  would  correct  abuses,  cannot  do  so,  because  the 
application  of  discipline  would  leave  their  dioceses  without 
parish  priests  to  administer  the  sacraments  and  attend  to 
the  necessary  ecclesiastical  functions.  To  such  an  extent  has 
the  evil  grown,  that  probably  not  one  priest  in  ten  would 
be  left,  were  discipline  applied  to  all  who  habitually  offend 
against  the  most  fundamental  rules  of  moral  purity.^' 

(8)  Charles  M.  Pepper,  special  agent  of  the 
United  States  Government,  of  conditions  in  Cuba, 
which  were  the  same  as  in  the  rest  of  Latin  America : 

In  Cuba,  as  in  Spain,  the  Church  was  against  civil  re- 
forms and  freedom  of  worship.  It  is  the  general  testimony 
that  the  Church  fees  for  marriage,  baptism,  and  burials  were 
mercilessly  exacted.  The  people  paid  tribute  from  the  cradle 
to  the  grave.  The  Spanish  priesthood  in  Cuba  as  a  class 
personified  ignorance,  cupidity,  and  indifference  to  their  holy 
office.  This  is  a  harsh  judgment.  It  has  been  pronounced 
in  calmness  and  sorrow  by  Catholic  observers.2 

1 82-84. 

*  Quoted  by  Grose,  "  Advance  in  the  Antilles,"   lOO. 


NOTE  TO   CHAPTER  V 

Alleged  correspondence  between  the  Vatican  and  the 
Archbishop  of  Santiago  de  Chile. 

In  a  Chilean  newspaper,  La  Lei,  which  at  first  was 
regarded  as  one  of  the  ablest  and  best  radical  news- 
papers in  Chile,  but  which  subsequently  deteriorated 
and  finally  died,  there  appeared  on  October  24,  1897, 
a  long  letter  purporting  to  be  "  addressed  by  order  of 
his  holiness  Pope  Leo  XIII  to  the  prelates  of  Chile." 
It  contained  a  terrible  arraignment  of  the  Archbishop 
and  the  Chilean  clergy  generally.  On  December  5, 
1897,  the  same  paper  published  what  purported  to 
be  the  Archbishop's  reply,  issued  under  his  seal. 
Extracts  from  these  letters  were  given  a  wide  pub- 
licity in  magazines  in  Germany,  England  and  the 
United  States,  and  a  paragraph  from  the  alleged  let- 
ter of  the  Pope  was  printed  in  Young's  book,  "  From 
Cape  Horn  to  Panama"  (1900),^  and  subsequently  in 
Beach's  **  Geography  and  Atlas  of  Protestant  Mis- 
sions *'  (1901),^  "Protestant  Missions  in  South  Amer- 
ica" (1900), 3  Clark's  "A  Continent  of  Opportunity" 
(1907),*  and  Neely's  "South  America,  its  Mission- 
ary Problems"  (1909).^  This  paragraph  and  the 
letter  from  which  it  was  taken,  though  published  far 
and  wide,  seem  never  to  have  been  called  in  question 
until  they  were  quoted  in  an  address  on  South  Amer- 
ica by  the  author  of  this  book  at  the  Student  Volunteer 

*9if.  '126.  '205. 

*333.  «*  136-137. 

I6S 


I66  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

Movement  Convention  in  Rochester  in  1909-10.  The 
letter  was  then  declared  to  be  fraudulent.  El  Mer- 
curio,  the  leading  present  day  newspaper  in  Chile,  re- 
produced it  and  pronounced  it  a  fraud.^  The  Secre- 
tary of  the  Archbishop  of  Chile  certified  that  such  a 
communication  had  never  been  received.^  And  the 
Protestant  missionaries  in  Chile  came  to  the  conclu- 
sion that  the  letter  had  been  a  fabrication  of  La  Lei, 
and  one  of  them  suggested  that  the  name  of  the  paper 
might  justly  have  been  changed  to  La  Lie. 

Dr.  Webster  E.  Browning,  of  Santiago,  at  my  re- 
quest, made  a  thorough  investigation  and  at  last  dis- 
covered the  author.  Under  date  of  December  16, 
191 1,  Dr.  Browning  writes: 

For  a  year  or  more  I  have  been  working  on  the  matter, 
but  have  not  been  able  to  bring  it  to  a  conclusion  until  to-day. 
I  first  went  to  a  member  of  Congress  whom  I  have  known 
for  a  number  of  years  and  told  him  of  the  letters  published 
in  the  Lei,  and  of  the  trouble  caused  by  their  quotation  in 
the  United  States.  He  heard  me  through  and  then,  with  a 
laugh,  said :  "  Those  letters  were  not  authentic."  I  replied 
that  the  Secretary  of  the  Archbishop  and  others  had  told 
me  the  same  thing,  but  that  I  would  be  glad  if  he  could  put 
me  in  the  way  of  proving,  beyond  a  doubt,  that  his  state- 
ment was  true.  After  some  hesitation  he  gave  me  the  name 
of  another  gentleman,  also  a  member  of  the  Radical  party, 
who,  he  said,  was  the  author  of  the  letters.  I  called  at  once 
on  this  gentleman  and  stated  the  case  to  him,  and,  without 
a  word,  he  arose,  went  to  his  safe,  unlocked  it,  and  brought 
out  a  book  of  clippings  of  his  articles  contributed  to  the 
Press  since  1878.  He  at  once  turned  to  the  two  articles, — 
the  pseudo  letter  of  the  Pope  and  the  reply  of  the  Arch- 
bishop and  stated  that  he  had  written  them  both,  at  the 
suggestion  of  one  of  the  leaders  of  the  Radical  party.  He 
said  that  he  had  no  idea  that  they  would  ever  be   quoted 

^Literary  Digest,  July  2,   1910,   19. 
^America,  June  18,  1910,  252. 


NOTE  TO   CHAPTER  V  167 

outside  of  Chile,  and  I  told  him  how  they  had  been  pub- 
lished, or  quoted,  in  both  London  and  New  York.  This  he 
seemed  to  take  as  a  compliment  to  his  ability  in  forging  the 
documents  and  laughed  at  the  whole  matter  as  a  huge  joke. 

I  asked  him  if  there  had  ever  been  any  basis  for  such  let- 
ters,— if  any  such  correspondence  had  ever  passed  between 
the  Vatican  and  the  clergy  of  Chile,  and  he  said  that  abso- 
lutely nothing,  so  far  as  he  knew,  had  ever  been  written. 

The  whole  matter,  then,  it  seems,  is  boiled  down  to  this 
fact:  the  gentleman  in  question,  who  has  asked  me  to  re- 
serve his  name,  wrote  the  letters  "  as  a  diversion,"  to  quote 
his  own  words,  not  expecting  that  they  would  be  quoted 
outside  of  his  own  country.  He  has  written  these  and  other 
such  letters  under  a  nom  de  plume,  and  only  a  very  few 
know  of  his  authorship, — one  of  these  men  being,  as  I  sus- 
pected, the  first  man  on  whom  I  called  this  morning.  Al- 
though all  the  other  members  of  his  family  are  Conserva- 
tives, as  he  told  me,  he  is  a  Radical  and  attacks  the  Church, — 
or  did,  in  his  younger  days, — in  this  way,  under  an  as- 
sumed name.  He  is  a  lawyer,  well-to-do  I  should  say,  and 
had  no  hesitancy  whatever  in  assuming  the  responsibility  of 
the  authorship  of  the  letters.  He  said  that  for  a  while  he 
was  known  among  his  cronies  of  that  time  as  "  Rampolla," 
in  honor  of  his  skill  in  writing  the  letters.  He  also  stated 
that  these  letters  were  the  cause  of  the  Archbishop's  excom- 
municating La  Lei,  a  fact  Ijnat  tremendously  increased  the 
circulation  of  the  paper  and  gave  it  ten  years  of  life  where- 
as, otherwise,  it  would  probably  have  died  much  sooner.  At 
his  request  I  keep  his  name  secret,  but  you  are  authorized 
to  use  my  letter  and  statements  as  you  think  best. 

The  author  of  the  letters  claims  that  the  statements  are  all 
true,  even  to-day. 

It  is  both  strange  and  lamentable  that  such  a  publi- 
cation should  have  gone  so  long  unchallenged  and 
have  been  allowed  so  general  a  circulation.  There  is 
need  of  a  far-reaching  purging  of  the  priesthood  of 
the  Roman  Church  in  South  America,  as  has  already 
appeared  and  is  acknowledged  by  candid  Roman 
Catholics,  and  the  fact  that  these  documents  were  fab- 


1 68  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

ricated  does  not  affect  one  way  or  the  other  the  truth 
about  conditions  in  South  America;  but  these  condi- 
tions will  not  be  improved  by  untruths,  and  everyone 
will  gladly  dismiss  from  his  mind  this  alleged  bit  of 
evidence  and  regret  its  circulation.  It  has,  however, 
these  lessons.  It  shows  the  possibility  of  South 
American  newspaper  invention  to  be  not  inferior  to 
the  worst  in  North  America.  It  shows  the  bitterness 
of  the  radical  opposition  to  the  Roman  Church,  and 
the  criticisms  which  are  rife  against  the  Church.  And 
it  shows  also  that  even  this  radicalism  credited  Leo 
XIII  with  the  will  to  rectify  the  abuses  which  it 
charged  to  the  Chilean  priesthood  and  with  a  purpose 
to  purifv  the  life  of  the  Church  in  South  America. 


CHAPTER  VI 

PRESENT    RELIGIOUS    CONDITIONS 
(Continued) 

But  there  are  other  conditions  than  those  already 
considered  for  which  the  Roman  Church  assumes  re- 
sponsibihty  by  virtue  of  its  claim  of  South  America 
as  a  Roman  Catholic  continent. 

5.  The  great  mass  of  the  South  American  people 
have  not  been  given  Christianity.  They  do  not  know 
what  Christ  taught  or  what  the  New  Testament  repre- 
sents the  Gospel  to  be.  There  are  surely  some  who  find 
peace  and  comfort  and  some  who  see  Christ  through 
all  that  hides  Him  and  misrepresents  Him,  but  the 
testimony  of  the  most  temperate  and  open-minded  of 
the  men  and  women  who  were  once  themselves  ear- 
nest Roman  Catholics  is  that  there  are  few  whom 
they  know  in  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  who  know 
the  facts  of  Christ's  Hfe  and  fewer  still  who  know 
Christ.  The  very  crucifixes  of  which  South  America 
is  full  misrepresent  the  Gospel.  They  show  a  dead 
man,  not  a  living  Saviour.  South  American  Chris- 
tianity knows  nothing  of  the  resurrection  and  of  that 
which  signifies  life.  We  did  not  see  in  all  the 
churches  we  visited  a  single  picture,  symbol  or  sugges- 
tion of  the  resurrection  or  the  ascension.  There  were 
hundreds  of  paintings  of  saints  and  of  the  Holy  Fam- 
ily and  of  Mary,  but  not  one  of  the  supreme  event  in 

169 


IJO  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

Christianity.  And  even  the  representations  of  the 
death  of  Christ  are  false.  Some  of  the  figures  are  too 
terrible  for  description,  and  their  whole  significance  is 
untrue  to  the  Gospel.  And  even  the  dead  Christ  is 
the  subordinate  figure.  The  central  place  is  Mary's. 
Often  she  is  shov^n  holding  a  small  lacerated  dead 
figure  in  her  lap,  and  often  she  is  the  only  person  rep- 
resented at  all.  In  the  great  La  Merced  church  in 
Lima,  over  the  chancel  is  the  motto :  "  Gloria  a 
Maria."  In  the  oldest  church  in  Barranquilla,  there 
is  no  figure  of  Christ  at  all  in  the  altar  equipment,  but 
Mary  without  the  infant  in  the  centre,  two  other  fig- 
ures on  either  side,  and  over  all  "Gloria  a  Maria."  In 
the  wall  of  the  ancient  Jesuit  Church  in  Cuzco  known 
as  the  Church  of  the  Compafiia,  are  the  words, 
"  Come  unto  Mary  all  ye  who  are  burdened  and 
weary  with  your  sins  and  she  will  give  you  rest." 
Over  the  figure  of  Mary  in  the  wretched  central 
church  in  Curityba,  where  Mary  stands  above  four 
inferior  figures  of  Mary,  Joseph,  John  the  Baptist, 
and  Jesus,  is  the  inscription,  "  Intercede  pro  nobis." 
This  supremacy  of  Mary  is  not  in  church  art  alone. 
It  is  the  practical  religion  of  the  land.  When,  on  Good 
Friday  morning,  1909,  the  two  processions  bearing  the 
images  of  Mary  and  Jesus  moved  out  of  the  Church 
of  San  Nicolas  in  Barranquilla  and  in  the  opposite  di- 
rections about  the  plaza,  the  multitude  followed  the 
figure  of  Mary  and  the  figure  of  the  Saviour  was  de- 
serted. Mary  is  the  central  religious  person.  She,  as 
Bishop  Romero  declared  in  the  Argentine  Congress  on 
December  31,  1901,  *'  for  all  Catholics  is  the  centre  of 
piety  and  virtue  in  the  family  circle."  Mary,  not 
Christ.  And  Mariolatry  is  the  religion  of  the  land 
because  the  Church  has  taught  it  as  true  Christianity. 


i 


PRESENT   RELIGIOUS   CONDITIONS         I7I 

We  might  quote  from  the  "  Catechism  of  Christian 
Doctrine  by  Canon  Jose  Ramon  Saavedra,  approved 
by  the  University  of  Chile  as  a  text-book  for  teaching 
in  the  schools  and  ordered  to  be  so  used  by  the  Su- 
preme Government.  Ninth  Edition.  Santiago,  1881." 
But  it  will  suffice  to  say  that  the  popular  religion  of 
South  America  accepts  the  view  of  Mary  which  is  set 
forth  in  St.  Alphonsus  Liguori's  "  The  Glories  of 
Mary,"  in  which  we  read : 

And  if  Jesus  is  the  King  of  the  universe,  Mary  is  also  its 
Queen,  and  as  Queen  she  possesses,  by  right,  the  whole  king- 
dom of  her  Son.  Hence  as  many  creatures  as  there  are  who 
serve  God,  so  many  they  are  who  serve  Mary:  for  as  angels 
and  men,  and  all  things  that  are  in  heaven  and  on  earth,  are 
subject  to  the  empire  of  God,  so  are  they  also  under  the 
dominion  of  Mary ! 

The  obedience  of  Mary  offset  the  evil  wrought  by  the 
disobedience  of  Eve,  and  thus  the  human  race,  accursed 
through  the  first  woman,  was  saved  through  the  Virgin  and 
won  back  from  the  powers  of  darkness  and  death  to  be  given 
to  grace  and  life.  .  .  . 

Our  Redemption  is  her  mission,  for  she  has  been  divinely 
appointed  to  intercede  for  us  at  the  throne  of  grace.  .  .  . 

Thou,  my  Mother,  hast  enamored  a  God  with  thy  beauty, 
and  drawn  him  from  heaven  into  thy  chaste  womb ;  and  shall 
I  live  without  loving  thee?  .  .  . 

If  Mary  undertakes  our  defence,  we  are  certain  of  gain- 
ing the  kingdom  of  heaven.    This  do,  and  thou  shult  live.  .  .  . 

O  compassionate  Mother,  most  sacred  Virgin,  behold  me 
at  thy  feet!  If  thou  protectest  me,  what  can  I  fear?  I  only 
fear  lest,  in  my  temptations  and  by  my  own  fault,  I  may 
cease  to  recommend  myself  to  thee  and  thus  be  lost.  But  I 
now  promise  thee  that  I  will  always  have  recourse  to  thee. 
O,  help  me  to  fulfil  my  promise.  Lose  not  the  opportunity 
which  now  presents  itself  of  gratifying  thy  ardent  desire  to 
succor  such  poor  wretches  as  myself.  In  thee,  O  Mother  of 
God,  I  have  unbounded  confidence.  From  thee  I  hope  for 
grace  to  bewail  my  sins  as  I  ought,  and  from  thee  I  hope 
for  strength  never  again  to  fall  into  them.     If  I  am   sick. 


172  SOUTH  AMERICVX   PROBLEMS 

Hkml,  O  odcstbl  plqpsician,  canst  heal  me.  If  mj  sins  have 
weakened  me,  €brf  h^  ^nll  sUei^thcn  me.  O  Mary,  I  hope 
aD  from  thee;  for  thoa  ait  all-powcrfal  vitfa  God.    Amen.^ 

It  is  not  necessary  to  detail  the  mullilude  of  pagan 
siqKTStitioos  with  whicfa  the  religion  of  Sooth  Amer- 
ica is  encnmbered.  It  is  enough  to  point  out  that  the 
Cfaorch  in  Sooth  America  does  not  preach  Christ  cm- 
cified  and  risen  again.  It  pieadies  Mary,  whom  it 
IModaims  from  the  1^  of  thousands  of  unfaithfol 
priests  to  be  of  inmtacolate  conception  and  of  perpet- 
nal  virginity.  The  doctrines  of  the  immaculate  con- 
ception and  the  perpetual  Tirginity  should  be  preached 
by  a  virgin  priesthood.  Untrue  in  themselves,  they 
are  doubly  false  and  can  minister  only  to  falsehood 
when  preached  by  false  men.  And  these  mea  the  peo- 
ide  of  Latin  America  are  taught  to  consider  as  **  gods 
on  earth.'*  This  is  the  statemoit  given  us  by  a  mis- 
sionary,  from  die  catechism  of  D.  Santiago  Jose  Gar- 
da  Mazo,  aj^roved  by  tiie  Church  and  widely  read  in 
E America:  "  The  Son  of  God  is  reincamated  in 
mds  of  the  priest  as  though  th^  were  another 
of  the  Mrgin.  Tlie  priest  by  virtue  of  the 
ivofds  of  consecration  makes  Christ  to  exist  upcm  the 
ahar  and  he  beccires  2i  :  r  :  er  of  the  Lord  and 
Ae  fansband  of  Ki  5  r     -  :  - :-.    As  Christians 

with  veneraticHi  2:  .  ::o  acknowledge 

tliem  entrusted  c :  repre- 

sent to  OS  the  i:.  :       ,;  .vho  at 

times  make  the  G         :  ^       r  :::en 

really  believe  thi-  e,  b-:  i:  1-  ^j   ^.i:  :    -" 

and  misrq)re5en:  well  as  by  delibe:  :; 

tkn  that  the  ^  \:   Church  has  n   . 

tam^  Chris:  ^^   :  recthr  fosterei     r:      :    :. 

lEddksi.         :  .:--:  :--55. 


PRESENT   RELIGIOUS   CONDITIONS         1 73 

and  untruth  of  character.  "  My  complaint  against  the 
Church,"  said  one  of  the  oldest  missionaries,  who 
maintains  cordial  relations  with  some  of  its  institutions 
and  its  representatives,  "  is  not  a  matter  of  any  par- 
ticular doctrine  or  doctrines,  but  of  the  general  influ- 
I  ence  of  the  Church  in  breaking  down  conscience  and 
j  the  sen='  of  individual  responsibility  to  God.  The 
Church  steps  in  at  every  stage  of  a  man's  life  and  does 
all  a  man*s  dealing  with  God.  The  result  is  that  there 
is  left  no  personal  moral  initiative  or  duty.  And  then 
I  complain  also  because  it  has  made  no  protest  against 
immorality.  With  pulpits  all  over  South  America  it 
has  raised  no  voice  against  vice  and  sin."  "  You  ask 
about  this  nation  and  the  Roman  Catholic  Church," 
said  the  American  Minister  in  one  South  American 
capital.  "  Well,  the  nation  is  rotten,  thanks  to  the 
Church  and  to  Spain.  The  Church  has  taught  lies  and 
uncleanness  and  been  the  bulwark  of  injustice  and 
wrong  for  three  hundred  years.  How  could  you  ex- 
pect anything  else?"  "Yes,"  added  an  English  mer- 
chant who  had  Hved  for  years  in  the  countr}-, ''  and  the 
people  are  sick  of  it,  and  ready  to  break  away.  I  know 
the  strong  men  of  the  countr}^,  and  they  despise  it, 
and  will  sometime  sweep  it  out  of  the  land,  but  it  still 
holds  the  women."  What  there  is  to  be  said  for  the 
view  that  South  America  is  sick  of  her  religious  system 
we  shall  consider  presently.  It  is  enough  to  point  out 
now  that  the  system  is  deliberately  deceitful.  "  Lies," 
said  a  priest  to  a  friend  who  told  the  remark  to  us, 
"  what  do  lies  have  to  do  with  religion?  "  Therefore 
in  the  catechism  which  has  been  quoted  and  also  in 
Jose  Deharbd's  Catechism  prepared  for  use  in  the 
Spanish-American  countries  and  published  with  the 
approval  of  many  Archbishops  and  bishops  in  Chile, 


174  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

Argentina,  Mexico  and  Spain,  the  Church  deliberately 
deceives  with  reference  to  the  Ten  Commandments, 
entirely  omitting  the  second  and  dividing  the  tenth  in 
order  to  make  the  requisite  number.  Can  a  Church 
which  deceives  the  people  teach  them  true  religion? 
Is  the  preaching  of  Mary  the  preaching  of  Christ? 
!Are  falsehood  and  Mariolatry  an  adequcv.c  reason 
for  withholding  truth  and  Christ  from  South  Am- 
erica? 

6.  Religion  is  still  in  South  America  entangled  with 
politics.  That  the  Church  which  for  centuries  had 
full  and  exclusive  control  of  religion  and  education 
and  was  also  the  greatest  political  power,  should  find 
difficulty  in  adjusting  itself  to  the  new  order  of  reli- 
gious toleration,  involving  in  some  lands  practical  dis- 
establishment and  in  every  land  a  great  curtailment  of 
its  authority,  was  perfectly  natural.  That  the  South 
American  nations  which  were  as  Roman  in  religion  as 
they  were  Spanish  in  government  should  find  it  harder 
to  give  up  the  former  than  the  latter  characteristic  was 
also  perfectly  natural.  That  nations  where  the  entire 
population  had  been  nominally  Roman  Catholic  should 
retain  that  religion  as  the  recognized  and  State  religion 
— ^this,  too,  was  perfectly  natural.  And  we  must  make 
all  allowance  for  these  things,  but  none  the  less  perilous 
and  injurious  both  to  religion  and  to  political  liberty  is 
the  doctrine  which,  as  we  have  already  seen,  dominates 
the  attitude  of  the  Roman  Church  toward  religious 
liberty  and  free  political  institutions.  It  is  desired  to 
confine  this  statement  strictly  to  the  situation  in  South 
America,  but  it  is  necessary  to  quote  some  princi- 
ples declared  elsewhere,  because  they  have  been  stead- 
ily proclaimed  as  the  Church's  doctrine  in  South 
America : 


PRESENT   RELIGIOUS   CONDITIONS         1 75 

To  depose  kings  and  emperors  is  as  much  a  right  as  to 
excommunicate  individuals  and  to  lay  kingdoms  under  an 
interdict.  These  are  no  derived  or  delegated  rights  but  are 
of  the  essence  of  that  Royal  authority  of  Christ  with  which 
His  Viceregents  on  earth  are  vested.^ 

The  Catholic  Dictionary,  1893,  under  the  imprimatur  of 
Cardinal  Vaughan,  cites  the  celebrated  Unam  Sanctam 
(1303).  "The  temporal  authority  must  be  subject  to  the 
spiritual  power." 

The  principle  (of  liberty  of  conscience)  is  one  which  is 
not  and  never  has  been  and  never  will  be  approved  by  the 
Church  of  Christ.2 

It  would  have  been  a  kind  of  ingratitude  and  treachery,  to 
Jesus  Christ  Himself — we  may  almost  say  it  would  have  ex- 
hibited the  implicit  spirit  of  apostasy — had  the  hideousness 
of  Sectarianism  been  permitted  (in  the  Dark  Ages)  to  sully 
the  fair  form  of  Catholic  unity,  had  heresy  been  permitted 
to  poison  the  pure  air  of  Catholic  truth.  ...  So  far  is  any 
apology  from  being  needed  for  the  then  existent  intolerance 
of  heretics  that,  on  the  contrary,  an  apology  would  be  now 
needed  for  the  Medieval  Church — and  would  indeed  not  be 
very  easily  forthcoming — had  she  tolerated  the  neglect  of 
intolerance.  .  .  .  And  we  need  hardly  add — though  we  will 
not  dwell  on  this — that  the  same  principle  which  applied  to 
Medieval  Europe,  applies  in  its  measure  to  any  contemporary 
country,  such  as  Spain,  in  which  Catholicity  has  still  entire 
possession  of  the  national  mind.^ 

If  to-morrow  the  Spanish  Government,  as  advised  by  the 
Catholic  Church,  were  to  see  that  a  greater  evil  would  ensue 
from  granting  religious  liberty  than  from  refusing  it,  then 
it  would  have  a  perfect  right  to  refuse  it.  Of  course,  the 
Protestant  Press  would  teem  with  charges  of  intolerance  and 
we  should  reply.  Toleration  to  Protestants  is  intoleration  to 
Catholics.* 

*  Cardinal  Manning,  "  Essays  on  Religion  as  Literature,"  second 
series,  417. 

=»  E.  J.  O.  Reilly,  S.  J.,  "  The  Relation  of  the  Church  to  Society," 
iii,   T.'jz.  ^Dublin  Review,   January,   1877,   39. 

*  W.  C.  Robinson,  who  was  made  a  Monsignor  by  Leo  XIII,  "  Lib- 
erty of   Conscience,"  22. 


176  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

The  Church  in  South  America  has  acted  on  these 
principles.  Some  of  the  great  leaders  in  the  emanci- 
pation of  the  South  American  republics  were  priests, 
but  the  Church  in  South  America  has  resisted  every 
advance  proposed  by  the  spirit  of  political  freedom. 
The  conservative  party  is  everywhere  the  clerical 
party.  Everywhere  the  clerical  party  has  obstructed 
education  and  industrial  progress.  It  has  fought  civil 
marriage,  religious  toleration  and  the  freedom  of  the 
press.  It  has  prompted  the  revolutions  against  the 
party  of  constitutional  liberty  and  human  equality.  In 
Peru  it  is  charged  that  it  has  instigated  every  such 
revolt  against  the  order  and  advancement  of  the  na- 
tion. It  wrecked  Colombia  when  that  country  was  en- 
joying unprecedented  prosperity  and  owned  a  good 
dollar.  Its  dollar  is  not  now  worth  one  cent.  This 
most  clerically  dominated  land  in  South  America  is 
one  of  the  most  backward  in  education,  has  a  worth- 
less currency,  and  with  the  richest  resources  suffers 
the  direst  poverty.  Where  the  states  have  broken 
away  from  the  domination  of  the  Church  and  adopted 
equal  laws,  the  Church  still  resists  and  shows  its  dis- 
loyalty. In  Parana  in  1909  a  public  mob  in  Florian- 
opolis  went  to  the  Bishop  to  protest  against  the  con- 
duct of  a  priest  who  would  not  allow  the  services  in 
memory  of  the  late  President  Penha,  of  Brazil,  who 
had  died  on  June  14,  1909,  to  be  held  in  his  church 
at  FlorianopoHs  because  the  national  flag  was  dis- 
played. This  he  held  was  the  symbol  of  a  secular  and 
illegitimate  agency,  not  to  be  recognized  by  the  Church 
because  of  its  enactment  of  a  civil  marriage  law  and 
its  freedom  from  Rome.  In  Rio  likewise  a  priest 
would  not  allow  a  soldier's  body  to  be  brought  into 
the  church  because  the  national  flag  was  over  the  cof- 


PRESENT    RELIGIOUS    CONDITIONS         1 77 

fin.  The  Bishop  of  Parana  in  the  Argentine  is  said 
to  have  repudiated  in  a  similar  way  the  flag  of  the 
Argentine  RepubHc. 

The  idea  of  tolerance  or  of  equal  recognition  is  a 
difficult  idea  to  the  South  American  Church.  The 
speech  of  Bishop  Romero  in  the  Argentine  National 
Congress  in  January,  1902,  opposing  a  subsidy  voted 
by  Congress  to  the  Rev.  William  C.  Morris  for  the 
"  Argentine  Evangelical  Schools/*  the  remarkable 
w^ork  developed  by  Mr.  Morris  for  the  education  of 
thousands  of  neglected  children  in  Buenos  Aires,  illus- 
trates this  difficulty.  The  bishop  rested  his  opposition 
to  the  grant  on  the  flat  declaration : 

"  Mr.  President,  I  believe  that  according  to  our  pres- 
ent constitution,  it  is  not  possible  to  favor  the  devel- 
opment of  Protestant  worship  in  the  Argentine  Re- 
public. .  .  .  And  I  say,  Mr.  President,  that  in  loyalty  to 
the  constitution  it  is  not  possible  to  support  and  spread 
the  Protestant  worship,  for  it  is  an  indisputable  prin- 
ciple that  when  the  fundamental  law  of  a  country 
commands  that  a  certain  institution  be  sustained,  it 
implicitly  estabhshes  the  prohibition  to  sustain  or  sup- 
port the  institutions  of  an  opposite  character ;  and  be- 
tween the  Catholic  and  the  Protestant  religions  there 
exists  a  diametrical  opposition.  The  duty  of  the  State 
being  therefore  to  sustain  the  Catholic  worship,  it  may 
not  support  in  any  way  whatever  an  institution  con- 
trary to  that  worship." 

We  call  the  United  States  a  Protestant  land.  In 
an  even  stronger  sense  the  South  American  colonies 
were  Roman  Catholic  lands.  We  can  understand  the 
slow  progress  among  them  of  ideas  of  religious  tol- 
eration, and  the  tenacity  of  the  traditional  Roman 
Catholic  confusion  of  Church  and  State.    But  the  con- 


178  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

fusion  has  been  injurious  to  both,  and  its  perpetuation 
is  a  constant  menace  to  South  American  Hberties. 

No  one  is  able  to  speak  more  authoritatively  upon 
the  attitude  of  the  South  American  religious  system 
to  political  liberty  than  Ruy  Barbosa,  the  leading 
South  American  representative  at  the  last  Hague  Con- 
ference and  one  of  the  most  conspicuous  candidates 
for  the  presidency  of  Brazil  after  Penha's  death.  In 
a  long  introduction  to  a  book  entitled  "  Janus "  he 
wrote  of  what  he  knew  in  Brazil: 

Romanism  is  not  a  religion,  but  a  political  organization, 
and  that,  too,  the  most  vicious,  the  most  unscrupulous,  and 
the  most  destructive  of  all  political  systems.  ...  If  Jesuit- 
ism is  a  perpetual  conspiracy  against  the  peace  that  has  for 
its  basis  liberty  and  parliamentary  institutions,  it  is  only  be- 
cause the  infallible  pope  hates  all  modern  constitutions,  as 
being  in  their  very  nature  incompatible  with  the  temporal 
power  of  the  clergy,  .  .  .  [The  Jesuit  order  is]  the  wisest  work 
of  darkness  which  the  perversion  of  Christian  morality  could 
desire.  ...  If  the  Bishop  is  systematically  rebellious  against 
constitutional  authority,  if  he  is  a  despot  with  his  own  sub- 
jects in  the  religious  domain,  and  at  the  same  time  insubor- 
dinate to  the  civil  law,  it  is  because  he  is  really  the  subject 
of  the  Romish  hierarchy  and  because  Rome's  rule  of  action 
has  ever  been  her  purpose  to  enslave  the  individual  con- 
science of  the  clergy  and  control  the  temporal  power  of  the 
Church.  If  the  monks  are  the  propagators  of  fanaticism, 
the  debasers  of  Christian  morals,  it  is  because  the  history  of 
papal  influence  for  many  centuries  has  been  nothing  more 
nor  less  than  the  story  of  the  dissemination  of  a  new  pagan- 
ism as  full  of  superstition  and  of  all  unrighteousness  as  the 
mythology  of  the  ancients— a  new  paganism  organized  at 
the  expense  of  evangelical  traditions,  shamelessly  falsified 
and  travestied  by  the  Romanists.  .  .  .  The  Romish  Church 
in  all  ages  has  been  a  power  religious  scarcely  in  name,  but 
always  inherently,  essentially  and  untiringly  a  political  power. 

These  are  Ruy  Barbosa's  words.  We  could  not 
write  them  and  we  quote  them  solely  with  reference 


PRESENT   RELIGIOUS   CONDITIONS         1 79 

to  South  America.  The  South  American  Church  em- 
bodies this  attitude.  In  so  far  as  this  attitude  misrep- 
resents Christianity  and  antagonizes  the  movement  of 
the  spirit  of  freedom  in  South  America  we  dare  not 
dehver  South  America  over  to  it. 

7.  The  Strength  and  Weakness  of  the  Roman 
Church  in  South  America.  The  Roman  Church  is  both 
very  strong  and  very  weak  in  South  America.  The 
priesthood  has  a  powerful  hold  upon  the  superstition 
of  the  people.  As  we  rode  along  one  day  in  Brazil  in 
a  drizzling  rain  with  bare  heads  and  rubber  ponchos,  an 
old  woman  came  running  solicitously  from  her  hovel, 
mistaking  us  for  priests  and  crying,  "  O  most  power- 
ful God,  where  is  your  hat  ? "  To  the  people  the 
priest  stands  in  the  place  of  God,  and  even  where  his 
own  Hfe  is  vile  the  people  distinguish  between  his 
function  as  priest,  in  which  he  stands  as  God  before 
the  altar,  and  his  life  as  man,  in  which  he  falls  into 
the  frailties  of  the  flesh.  Not  only  is  the  priesthood 
the  most  influential  body  in  South  America,  but  the 
Church  has  a  hold  upon  politics  and  family  life  and 
society  which  is  paralyzing.  In  Quito,  Ecuador,  alone, 
for  example,  *'  there  are  six  monasteries,  seven  con- 
vents, ten  seminaries,  seven  parochial  churches,  fif- 
teen conventual  churches,  a  cathedral,  a  basilica,  and 
thirteen  chapels,  covering  nearly  one-fourth  of  the 
area  of  the  city.  The  Franciscan  monastery,  which 
covers  several  acres,  is  said  to  be  the  largest  in  the 
world."  ^  And  all  this  is  in  a  city  of  about  50,000  pop- 
ulation, A  few  years  ago,  before  the  upheaval  in 
Ecuador,  it  was  said  that  there  was  a  Roman  Catholic 
church  for  every  150  inhabitants;  "that  ten  per  cent 
of  the  entire  population  was  either  priests,  monks,  or 

*"  Ecuador,   1909,"  15. 


I80  SOUTH    AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

nuns,  and  that  about  seventy-five  per  cent  of  the 
population  of  Ecuador  was  absolutely  illiterate."  ^ 
The  evil  of  the  Church  is  not  weak  and  harmless  but 
pervasive  and  deadly,  and  the  Christian  Church  is 
called  by  the  most  mandatory  sanctions  to  deal  with 
the  situation. 

But  on  the  other  hand,  the  Roman  Catholic  Church 
does  not  have  a  fraction  of  the  strength  and  power  in 
South  America  which  it  is  supposed  to  have,  and  the 
inefficiency  of  its  work  is  pitiful.  With  enormous  re- 
sources, with  all  the  lines  of  power  in  its  hands,  it  has 
steadily  lost  ground.  Here  and  there  there  have  been 
galvanic  revivals  worked  by  the  ecclesiastics  who  have 
poured  in  from  Europe  and  of  whom  some  are  capable 
and  some  devout  men,  but  the  Church  is  decrepit, 
without  spiritual  leadership,  destitute  of  missionary 
zeal,  with  no  ingenuity  of  method,  and  weak  and  sick. 
How  sad  the  conditions  are  and  how  earnestly  the  best 
men  deplore  the  situation  we  learned  from  a  statement 
of  some  priests  whom  we  met  in  Buenos  Aires.  I 
went  to  see  them  with  Mr.  Dougherty  of  the  American 
Lutheran  Church,  who  had  been  sent  from  Philadel- 
phia to  look  after  the  Lutheran  Scandinavians  in 
Buenos  Aires  and  who  had  been  doing  so,  but  whose 
heart  had  been  stirred  by  the  need  of  religious  work 
in  Spanish  among  the  religiously  destitute  people  of 
the  Argentine  and  who  could  not  in  conscience  leave 
Buenos  Aires  with  its  ten  Protestant  churches  and  go 
back  to  Philadelphia  with  its  six  hundred  and  ninety. 
Mr.  Dougherty  had  sought  for  some  priests  who  were 
truly  and  intelligently  interested  in  the  spiritual  wel- 
fare of  the  people  and  had  found  a  small  company  of 

1  Lee,  "  Religious  Liberty  in  South  America,"  i8o,  quoting  Curtis, 
"  Between  the  Andes  and  the  Ocean,"   6i,   87. 


PRESENT   RELIGIOUS    CONDITIONS         l8l 

them.     This  was  the  substance  of  what  one  of  them 
said: 

The  need  in  this  country  is  very  great  and  our  Church  is 
very  weak.  There  are  only  eight  bishops  where  there  ought 
to  be  twelve  or  fifteen.  We  are  held  up  by  our  connection 
with  the  State,  which  has  the  right  of  appointment  of  the 
bishops,  and  the  President  has  not  appointed  the  others  whom 
we  so  sadly  need.  I  regard  this  connection  with  the  State 
as  a  great  evil.  We  have  no  such  liberty,  no  such  respect 
here  for  the  Church  and  its  priesthood,  no  such  power  and 
influence  as  a  Church  as  you  have  in  the  United  States, 
where  the  Churches  are  all  free  from  connection  with  the 
State.  The  Argentinos  are  a  wide-awake  progressive  people, 
and  in  the  provinces  they  are  not  irreligious,  but  here  in  the 
city,  which  has  one-fifth  of  the  population  of  the  country, 
they  are  utterly  irreligious.  The  foreign  element  has  drifted 
away  from  the  Church.  It  never  knew  a  free  connection 
with  a  free  Church,  and  when  it  found  that  here  the  priests 
had  no  such  power  over  them  as  in  Europe,  it  abandoned  the 
Church  entirely.  In  our  parish  here  of  120,000,  only  eight 
per  cent  go  to  church.  Then  the  forces  of  the  Church  are 
inadequate.  In  the  whole  of  the  Argentine  there  are  only 
between  500  and  1,000  priests,  counting  the  secular  priests, 
too,  and  this  in  a  population  of  5,000,000.  In  the  city  of  Ro- 
sario  there  are  seventeen  priests  to  140,000  people.  Here  in 
Buenos  Aires  there  is  a  parish  of  130,000  with  but  one  priest 
and  two  assistants.  In  the  United  States  such  a  parish  would 
be  almost  enough  for  a  bishopric.  About  three  out  of  ten 
of  the  priests  are  native  Argentinos.  I  do  not  think  that 
they  are  to  be  blamed  for  the  bad  condition  of  the  Church. 
There  have  been,  I  think,  only  three  scandals  since  I  came 
in  1893.  But  the  great  mass  of  the  people  have  no  religion, 
or  if  they  do  they  do  not  practice  it.  The  great  need  is  for 
preaching  the  Gospel,  but  alas,  most  of  the  priests  have  never 
done  any  preaching  and  do  not  know  how.  The  Italian  and 
Spanish  priests  especially  just  go  from  church  to  church 
saying  masses.  We  call  them  changadors  (i.e.,  porters). 
And  it  is  terrible  to  see  the  way  the  priests  are  despised  and 
reviled  and  hated  here.  We  cannot  go  out  from  house  to 
house  or  even  take  a  religious  census  in  the  homes  of  our 
parish.     The   people   insult   and   scorn   us   so.     You   cannot 


1 82  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

imagine  how  different  it  is  from  the  United  States,  where 
religion  is  respected  and  the  priests  are  honored.  Here  it 
is  bad  luck  to  see  a  priest,  and  if  even  high-class  ladies  pass 
one  they  run  to  touch  iron  to  break  the  bad  luck.  Our  body- 
has  asked  the  Pope  to  let  us  wear  ordinary  clothes  and  to 
put  aside  our  priests'  dress  so  that  we  can  reach  the  people. 
The  people  here  do  not  support  the  Church  as  they  do  in 
the  United  States.  They  do  not  attend  mass.  When  they 
do  they  are  disorderly  and  you  would  never  know  it  was 
church,  and  even  at  times  of  death  they  will  not  send  for 
the  priest  or  will  do  so  only  at  the  last  unconscious  moments. 
Another  great  need  besides  preaching  is  for  schools,  but  the 
Church  has  none,  only  a  few  poor  Sunday  Schools.  We 
have  no  money  for  them.  In  the  United  States  the  priests 
have  plenty  of  support  for  their  work,  from  pew  rents, 
weekly  offerings,  special  feast-day  offerings  and  wedding 
fees,  usually  $20.00,  baptisms  from  $5.00  to  $20.00  and  funer- 
als. The  weekly  offerings  are  usually  enough  to  support 
the  priest  and  he  has  plenty  for  schools.  But  here  we  have 
none  of  these  things  except  the  fee  for  funerals  and  masses, 
and  usually  only  two  dollars  or  so  for  masses.  The  people 
will  go  unmarried  rather  than  pay  the  priest,  though  they 
will  pay  great  sums  on  funeral  displays.  The  need  of  ask- 
ing for  money  for  funerals  and  marriages  puts  our  priests 
here  in  a  bad  light  and  makes  them  the  more  unpopular.  The 
neglect  of  church  marriages  gets  things  into  a  bad  condition 
and  often  we  organize  missions  just  to  go  about  and 
straighten  out  marriage  relations  and  perform  the  ceremony 
free.  The  truth  is  that  the  great  mass  of  the  people  have 
no  religion  and  that  the  conditions  are  truly  pitiful.  Should 
there  be  Protestant  churches  here?  Why  not?  The  churches 
are  all  in  the  United  States  together  and  get  along  very  well. 
I  do  not  see  why  they  should  not  be  here  also. 

"  I  think,"  added  another  priest  who  had  come  in, 
"  that  things  have  improved  some  during  the  fifteen 
years  since  I  came.  More  young  men  come  now  than 
did  then.  The  people  are  shrewd  and  thrifty  and  not 
generous.  There  is  no  common  stock  but  the  type  is 
something  more  than  a  composite.     It  has  no  respect 


PRESENT   RELIGIOUS   CONDITIONS         1 83 

for  the  authority  of  the  Church.  We  need  our  own 
schools.  We  can  go  into  the  public  schools  and  teach 
religion,  but  only  out  of  school  hours  and  the  children 
will  not  stay  for  it."  These  men  were  good  and  ear- 
nest men.  Whoever  thinks  that  there  are  not  good 
men  among  the  priests  should  meet  such  men.  One's 
heart  goes  out  to  them  in  their  hard  and  despised  mis- 
sion, inherited  from  the  priesthood  which  has  been 
the  curse  of  South  America  and  to  which  some  people 
tell  us  we  should  leave  it.  As  we  rose  to  go  they  in- 
vited us  to  go  into  their  church  with  them.  It  was  a 
simple  and  attractive  Gothic  church  which  they  said 
had  been  designed  by  a  Protestant  architect.  On  the 
altar  in  the  chancel  was  a  simple  little  cross,  not  a  cru- 
cifix, though  a  crucifix  stood  off  at  one  side.  Over 
the  cross  was  a  good  painting  of  the  Agony  in  Geth- 
semane.  The  two  Fathers  took  us  into  the  church  and 
about  the  church  and  bade  us  good-bye  at  the  door. 
They  are  trying  to  do  by  evangelistic  work,  by  con- 
stant preaching  and  by  true  lives  what  it  were  well  if 
the  true  men  in  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  and  in  all 
Churches  would  do  without  more  delay  for  South 
America.  Their  view  of  the  situation,  while  confined 
to  Argentina  is  increasingly  true  of  all  South  America. 
The  Church  is  weak  and  ineffective.  The  church 
buildings  are  often  ill  kept  and  in  ill  repair.  Some 
of  them  are  kept  so  purposely  as  a  leverage  for  rais- 
ing funds,  but  the  very  device  is  itself  a  confession  of 
weakness.  The  population  is  inadequately  looked 
after.  In  the  cities  there  are  convents  full  of  priests 
and  sisters,  but  in  the  country  there  are  large  sections 
wholly  uncared  for.  In  many  towns  there  is  small 
provision  and  even  in  large  cities  there  are  districts 
left  to  one  church  and  its  priest  for  which  it  is  impos- 


1 84  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

sible  for  him  to  care.  In  1904  Bishop  Kinsolving  of 
the  American  Protestant  Episcopal  Mission  in  Brazil, 
stated  that  a  Roman  priest  had  told  him  that  there 
were  hardly  more  than  a  dozen  churches  in  the  state 
of  Rio  Grande  do  Sul  where  at  that  time  mass  was 
said  on  the  Lord's  Day.^  In  1895,  there  were  only 
1,019  churches  in  the  entire  Argentine  Republic. 

Even  the  attendance  upon  the  churches  we  found 
to  be  far  less  than  we  had  anticipated.  There  were 
few  crowded  churches.  We  saw  only  two  which  had 
more  than  four  hundred  people  in  them.  We  went  to 
the  cathedral  service  in  great  Roman  Catholic  cities 
like  La  Paz  and  Arequipa,  and  though  there  were  bish- 
ops or  high  ecclesiastics  and  elaborate  processions, 
there  were  small  handfuls  of  worshippers.  Arequipa 
was  said  to  be  one  of  the  most  fanatical  cities  in  Peru, 
where  the  Church  still  held  the  loyalty  of  the  men. 
We  attended  five  churches  there  on  the  great  feast  of 
the  Virgin  Mary's  birthday.  There  were  not  150  men 
at  any  of  the  services,  at  most  of  them  there  were  not 
fifty,  and  not  more  than  300  or  400  women.  It  was 
a  week  day  and  all  the  shops  were  as  much  closed  as 
they  would  be  on  Sunday,  but  the  people  were  not  in 
the  churches.  In  Holy  Week  there  are  great  demon- 
strations and  on  special  occasions  some  churches  will 
be  thronged  and  sometimes  with  men,  and  there  are 
cities  where  the  churches  are  largely  attended,  but  I 
do  not  believe  the  Roman  Catholics  of  South  America 
attend  church  with  anything  like  the  fidelity  of  Prot- 
estants or  Roman  Catholics  in  the  United  States. 
There  was  not  one  city  or  town  where  we  spent  a 
Sunday  where  the  total  attendance  at  church  would 
have  equalled,  I  do  not  believe  it  would  have  amounted 

*  The  Sun,  New  York,  April  12,  1904. 


PRESENT   RELIGIOUS    CONDITIONS         1 85 

to  one-half,  perhaps  not  to  one-quarter,  the  church 
attendance  that  same  day  in  any  American  community 
of  the  same  size. 

Mr.  Isaacson  writes  of  Brazil  in  "  Rome  in  Many 
Lands  " :  ^  "  Of  the  one-fifth  (  ?)  who  are  educated 
only  the  smallest  proportion  adhere  to  any  form 
of  religion  whatever.  Statesmen,  lawyers,  phy- 
sicians, army  and  navy  officials  have  almost  to  a  man 
rejected  the  historic  Christ,  and  have  turned  to  infi- 
delity and  Positivism.  In  one  city  with  a  population 
of  35,000  after  careful  investigation  less  than  200 
could  be  found  in  full  communion  with  the  Roman 
Church."  He  quotes  the  Catholic  Bishop  of  Sao 
Paulo,  saying  in  an  official  paper :  "  Brazil  has  no 
longer  any  faith.  Religion  is  almost  extinct  here."  - 
Father  Sherman,  a  son  of  Gen.  W.  T.  Sherman,  made 
the  same  report  about  Porto  Rico.  He  went  to  that 
island  as  a  Roman  Catholic  chaplain  with  the 
American  army  and  wrote  to  a  Roman  Catholic  jour- 
nal :  "  Porto  Rico  is  a  Catholic  country  without  re- 
ligion. The  clergy  do  not  seem  to  have  any  hold  of 
the  native  people."  ^  To  General  Brooke,  he  reported : 
"  Now  that  the  priests  are  deprived  of  government 
aid  many  are  leaving  the  country.  The  Church  has 
been  so  united  with  the  State  and  so  identified  with  it, 
in  the  eyes  of  the  people,  that  it  must  share  the  odium 
with  which  Spanish  rule  is  commonly  regarded.  The 
sacrament  of  confirmation  has  not  been  administered 
for  many  years  in  a  great  part  of  the  island.  Religion 
is  dead  on  the  island."  *    Father  Sherman  would  have 

1 160. 

2  McCabe,   "  The  Decay  of  the  Church  of  Rome,"  footnote,  logf. 
'  The  Messenger  of  the  Sacred  Heart,  December,  1898,  Art.  "A  Month 
in  Porto  Rico,"  quoted  in   The  Converted  Catholic,  January,   1899. 
*  Grose,   "Advance  in  the  Antilles,"    196. 


l86  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

to  make  the  same  report  on  most  of  the  South  Ameri- 
can countries. 

Even  if  the  South  American  system  were  Christian, 
it  is  preposterous  to  speak  of  it  as  occupying  the  field 
or  meeting  the  rehgious  needs  of  the  country. 

Within  recent  years,  as  has  been  already  suggested, 
the  Roman  Church  has  been  giving  the  keenest  atten- 
tion to  South  America.  Father  Currier  in  a  recent 
article  speaks  of  this  Roman  Catholic  revival  and  of 
the  awful  need  for  it: 

As  to  religion,  there  is  a  new  Brazil  as  much  as  in  poli- 
tics and  in  material  prosperity.  The  Catholicity  of  the 
colonial  period  has  left  its  monuments  in  the  old  churches, 
nearly  all  in  the  style  of  the  Renaissance  of  the  period.  But 
religion  in  Brazil  had  declined,  and  the  abomination  of  deso- 
lation was  prevailing  in  the  holy  place.  I  could  not  begin 
to  tell  you  of  the  utter  deterioration  of  religion  which  once 
existed.  All  this  I  learned  since  leaving  Bahia.  Then  came 
the  change,  one  of  the  most  wonderful  changes  recorded  in 
ecclesiastical  history,  and  all  within  a  period  of  twenty  years. 
The  empire  fell — it  was  a  Providence  of  God — and  the  State 
ceased  to  meddle  with  the  Ch-irch.  Breathing  the  atmos- 
phere of  freedom,  the  Church  expanded,  and  to-day  she  finds 
herself  in  a  most  flourishing  condition.  The  impulse  is  due 
to  that  great  statesman,  that  noble  Pontiff,  that  Leo  XIII, 
whose  eagle  eye  never  ceased  to  scan  the  horizon.  He  sent 
Cardinal  Gotti  to  Brazil ;  the  reformation  began  in  earnest. 
The  old  religious  orders  were  nearly  extinct;  their  ranks 
were  recruited  from  Europe.  The  old  Benedictine  abbeys 
arose  from  their  tomb,  while  the  Carmelites  and  Franciscans, 
equally  recruited  from  abroad,  were  born  anew.  .  .  .  Priests 
are  the  great  need  of  Brazil,  for  vocations,  especially  among 
the  better  classes,  are  scarce  and  seminaries  are  few.  For 
instance,  there  is  one  seminary  for  the  whole  province  of 
Sao  Paulo,  with  a  small  number  of  students.  Should  mat- 
ters continue  to  advance  and  no  untoward  events  occur,  the 
Brazilian  Church  has  now  an  era  of  prosperity  ahead  of  her.^ 

^The  American  Catholic  Quarterly   Review,  July,    1910,  4771. 


Arequipa,  Peru;  Mount  Misti  in  the  Distance 


Avenue  of  Palm  Trees  in   Rio  de  Janeiro,,  Brazil 


PRESENT   RELIGIOUS   CONDITIONS         1 87 

According  to  the  Vatican  correspondent  of  the  New 
York  Sun,  Leo  XIII  began  in  1884  to  plan  for  this 
"  rehabilitation  of  the  South  American  Churches " 
whose  decadence  was  recognized.  But  this  tide  of 
interest  on  the  part  of  the  European  Roman  Catholic 
Church  in  South  America  is  sweeping  in  much  that  is 
evil.  Along  with  honest  men,  the  refuse  driven  out 
of  other  lands  is  also  pouring  into  South  America. 
The  South  Americans  are  beginning  to  resent  the  in- 
vasion which  has  threatened  their  liberal  institutions. 
The  new  forces  have  greatly  strengthened  the  Church, 
but  they  have  done  nothing  as  yet  to  revive 
real  religion  and  little  to  enhst  the  interest  of  the  peo- 
ple in  the  old  forms  which  have  lost  whatever  mean- 
ing they  may  have  once  possessed  to  the  great  masses 
of  the  South  American  population. 

Two  competent  testimonies  from  within.  In  sum- 
marizing the  present  religious  conditions  in  South 
America,  I  cannot  do  better  than  cite  two  witnesses. 
One  was  for  six  years  a  Roman  Catholic  priest  in 
South  America,  and  the  other  is  Father  Charles  W. 
Currier,   Ph.D.,  of  Washington. 

The  former  writes  that  every  statement  made  in 
this  and  the  preceding  chapter  with  regard  to  present 
conditions  is  true  and  adds  these  notes: 

I  lived  six  years  in  South  America,  and  being  directly  en- 
gaged in  religious  work,  was  alive  to  the  moral  problems, 
and  my  experience  bears  out  all  you  say,  and  more  than  that. 

As  to  illiterates  in  Brazil,  85  per  cent  is  very  conservative; 
I  should  have  put  it  higher. 

As  to  illegitimacy,  68.8  per  cent  is,  I  think,  untrue.  The 
true  percentage,  if  it  could  be  had,  would  put  the  figure  much 
above  this.  There  are  whole  towns  along  the  Parana  where 
there  is  not  nor  has  there  ever  been  marriage. 

I  had  to  copy  out  a  report  of  a  long  missionary  journey 


1 88  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

in  the  north  of  Argentina,  and  the  baptismal  register  read, 
over  against  almost  every  name — I  should  say  against  95 
per  cent  of  the  names— "  hijo  natural"  or  "hija  natural." 

I  can  also  corroborate  your  testimony  as  to  the  place  of 
"  marriages "  in  the  little  missionary  work  that  is  done  in 
the  Argentine.  The  Bishop  of  La  Plata  and  his  coadjutor, 
both  exemplary  and  zealous  men,  make  long  journeys  and 
work  hard,  but  men  of  this  stamp  are  far  too  few.  On  all 
their  missionary  journeys  they  take  with  them  a  certain  man 
— priest — who  has  a  gift  for  inducing  people  who  are  living 
together  to  get  married. 

I  have  seen  sixty  couples  married  after  a  mission  in  Holy 
Cross  Church,  Buenos  Aires,  and  in  some  cases  the  children 
attended  the  marriage  of  their  parents. 

The  "  querida  "  or  "  amada "  is  a  regular  institution  and 
almost  universal  among  such  men  as  can  support  one,  and 
the  custom  is  imitated  by  the  older  sons. 

As  to  Church  and  State,  the  relation  established  by  law 
does  not  favor  the  Church  in  all  cases.  I  have  heard  many 
priests  say  that  they  wished  that  the  day  might  come  and 
come  quickly  when  there  would  be  a  separation;  the  priests 
who  say  this  are,  however,  not  natives,  nor  Latins. 

Cardinal  Satolli,  when  in  this  country,  drew  a  comparison 
between  the  relations  of  Church  and  State  in  North  and  in 
South  America.  He  said,  using  and  playing  upon  a  well- 
known  scholastic  distinction :  "  The  State  in  America  recog- 
nizes the  '  personality '  but  not  the  '  existence  '  of  the  Church, 
and  in  South  America  it  recognizes  the  '  existence '  but  not 
the  'personality.'" 

I  was  in  Rio  when  the  St.  Francis  Hospital  was  formally 
opened  with  a  semi-pagan  pageant  in  the  church  on  the  hill 
above  it — the  old  Franciscan  Church.  I  saw  a  little  thing 
that  day  which  was  eloquent  of  the  attitude  of  laity  to  clergy 
in  Brazil.  The  public  was  invited  to  inspect  the  new  build- 
ing, and  when  we  went  down  the  long  steps  and  came  to 
the  door  of  the  hospital  through  which  the  people  were 
thronging,  I  saw  the  robed  guardian  of  the  door  rudely  shove 
a  priest  out  and  forbid  him  entrance. 

I  have  seen  irreverence  in  churches  everywhere,  but  I  never 
saw  anything  to  equal  the  irreverence  of  men  in  Brazil.  The 
striking  case  that  I  have  in  mind  was  of  a  man  who  seemed 


PRESENT    RELIGIOUS    CONDITIONS         189 

to  have  come  to  church  with  no  other  purpose  than  to  mock 
the  priest. 

In  Argentina,  while  the  Federal  Government  supports  the 
Apostolic  Roman  Catholic  Church,  and  the  President  and 
Vice-President  must  belong  to  that  church,  it  is  also  the 
case  that  the  government  does  not  support  the  priests  but 
only  the  Bishops,  and  the  President  and  Vice-President,  when 
I  was  there,  were  ipso  facto  excommunicated  men  because 
they  were  Masons. 

The  Catholic  forces  in  Brazil,  Argentina  and  all  down  the 
East  coast  are  in  despair.  They  are  absolutely  without  hope. 
They  look  upon  the  Church's  tenure  of  power  as  a  matter  of 
time,  and  that  a  short  time.  I  have  heard  many  a  discussion 
behind  closed  doors  upon  the  situation,  and  all  that  was  said 
bore  this  note  of  despair.  The  Catholic  Church  has  not  only 
lost  its  grip  there,  but  even  the  Catholic  Church  knows  it. 
I  am  speaking  even  of  the  native  priests. 

I  do  not  think  that  the  Church  in  any  case  reaches  more 
than  ten  per  cent  of  the  people,  and  in  many  places  this  is 
saying  too  much.  I  do  not  believe  that  of  the  1,000,000  peo- 
ple in  Buenos  Aires  there  are  200  men  on  any  given  Sunday 
at  service. 

There  may  be  places  in  South  America  where  it  is  true, 
but  I  do  not  think  that  it  can  be  said  that  the  priesthood  is 
the  most  influential  body  in  South  America,  and  I  know  that 
its  hold  on  politics  is  precarious  and  only  for  a  time.  Its 
hold  on  family  life  is  not  present  but  inherited.  The  sub- 
stance of  religion  is  gone  and  only  superstition  is  left.  The 
priest  is  hated. 

The  Church  has  a  hold,  but  the  grip  is  the  grip  of  a  dead 
hand,  only  the  people  do  not  as  yet  realize  that  the  hand  is 
dead.  But  there  is  no  life  in  the  grip,  and  it  only  needs  a 
vigorous  effort  on  the  part  of  the  missionaries,  massed  in 
numbers  at  some  stragetic  point,  to  loosen  the  grip.  I  can- 
not say  too  often  that  the  Church  there  is  dead,  and  none 
know  it  better  than  the  priests  themselves. 


Father  Currier  visited  South  America  as  a  delegate 
to  the  International  Congress  of  Americanists  and  has 
written  a  most  interesting  account  of  the  various  lands 


190  SOUTH   AMERICAN   PROBLEMS 

he  visited  in  a  book  entitled  "  Lands  of  the  Southern 
Cross."  These  are  some  of  his  comments  on  the  pres- 
ent conditions  of  Church  and  priesthood.  We  will 
quote  him  fairly: 

The  Brazilian  people,  as  a  body,  are  surely  attached  to  the 
old  Church,  at  least  in  form,  but  there  is  no  doubt  that  there, 
as  elsewhere,  a  spirit  of  rationalism  prevails  among  certain 
classes.! 

In  the  days  of  the  empire,  the  Church,  united  to  the  State, 
had  fallen  into  a  condition  of  decrepitude,  and  the  morals 
of  the  clergy,  secular  and  regular,  were  greatly  relaxed;  but 
in  the  last  twenty  years  a  wonderful  reformation  has  taken 
place.2 

Yet  I  have  reason  to  believe  that  the  practice  of  religion 
in  Brazil  leaves  much  to  be  desired.^ 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that,  before  the  separation  of  Church 
and  State,  the  influence  of  the  government  was,  on  the  whole, 
unfavorable  to  the  Church,  greatly  hampering  its  freedom 
of  action.  This  will,  to  some  extent,  explain  the  relaxation 
of  morals,  while  it  is  quite  sure  that  the  general  reform 
began  under  the  impetus  given  by  Rome.* 

The  Jesuit  Fathers  (in  Montevideo)  have  charge  of  the 
Seminary,  but  here,  as  in  many  other  countries  of  South 
America,  there  are  few  vocations  to  the  priesthood.  This 
scarcity  of  native  ecclesiasts  has  rendered  it  necessary  to 
accept  the  services  of  those  from  abroad,  and  hence  it  is  that  so 
many  foreign  priests,  French,  German,  Italian  and  Spanish,  are 
scattered  throughout  South  America.  .  .  .  Most  of  the  mem- 
bers of  these  religious  orders  are  foreigners,  and  they  are 
always  on  the  qui  vive,  not  knowing  at  what  hour  an  edict 
of  banishment  may  be  passed  against  them.  In  the  mean- 
time, they  are  working  hard  in  the  ministry.  As  a  rule,  the 
clergy  of  Uruguay  is  very  good,  though,  to  some  extent, 
characterized  by  that  inactivity  and  slowness  found  in  so 
many  Latin  countries.  .  .  . 

The  Catholic  Church  is  still  recognized  officially,  but  only 
the  bishops  and  the  seminary  obtain  a  subvention  from  the 
government.     In   spite  of  the  union  of  Church  and   State, 

*44.  '52.  ^62.  *62,   63. 


PRESENT   RELIGIOUS    CONDITIONS         I9I 

there  seems  to  be  an  undercurrent  of  hostility  to  the  Church 
which  may  break  out  at  any  moment.  The  public  schools 
are  neutral,  and  the  teaching  of  religion  is  excluded,  while 
the  State  university  is  said  to  be  atheistic  in  its  tendencies. 
Religion  has  no  place  even  in  the  foundling  asylum.  Al- 
though there  are  Catholic  organs  like  El  Bien,  and  promi- 
nent Catholic  laymen,  like  Dr.  Sorrilla  San  Martin,  most 
newspapers  are  hostile  to  the  Church.  It  is  no  wonder  that, 
with  the  elimination  of  religious  principles,  morality  should 
be  discounted.  While  influences  for  good  are  crushed  to 
earth,  French  literature  and  the  French  theater  are  permit- 
ted to  corrupt  the  morals  of  the  people,  and  they  say  that 
licensed  prostitution  is  widespread. 1 

As  Church  and  State  are  united  in  Argentina,  the  Senate 
nominates  the  candidates  to  the  episcopacy,  and  the  names 
are  forwarded  to  Rome.  It  sometimes  occurs  that  the  candi- 
date is  rejected.  The  system  is  surely  not  the  best  that  can 
be  desired,  as  it  naturally  renders  bishops,  more  or  less,  sub- 
servient to  the  State  and  timid,  especially  when  they  are  sub- 
sidized by  the  government.  This  is  one  of  those  evils  in- 
separable from  a  union  of  Church  and  State  which,  in  the 
past,  has  caused  no  end  of  trouble  to  the  Church.2 

The  clergy  of  Argentina,  as  a  body,  bear  a  very  good  repu- 
tation for  conduct,  though  the  general  complaint  one  hears 
in  South  America  is  that  many  of  the  foreign  secular  eccle- 
siastics, led  to  America  more  by  self-interest  than  by  zeal, 
have  proved  themselves  worthless.  For  this  reason,  the  bish- 
ops have  become  more  cautious  in  admitting  strangers. 

In  Argentina,  as  throughout  all  of  South  America,  eccle- 
siastics always  wear  the  cassock.  I  am,  however,  aware  of 
the  fact  that,  in  Buenos  Aires  at  least,  there  is  a  decided 
wish  on  the  part  of  some  of  the  clergy  to  discard  it  as  a 
street  costume;  but  they  are,  naturally,  opposed  by  the  older 
conservative  element.  There  is  no  doubt  that,  in  a  city  like 
Buenos  Aires,  seething  with  elements  hostile  to  the  Church, 
the  ecclesiastical  garb  is  somewhat  of  a  hindrance.  Though 
it  may  protect  the  respectability  of  a  priest,  it  also  hampers 
his  freedom  of  action,  and  must  necessarily  dampen  his  zeal. 
In  the  United  States,  priests  clad  in  secular  garb  go  any- 
where and   everywhere.     They  penetrate,  unhampered,   into 

*66,  67,  »i43,  144, 


192  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

every  nook  and  corner  of  their  parish,  they  learn  to  know 
their  people.  I  am  afraid  that  this  personal  work  of  the 
ministry  that  brings  the  priest  in  touch  with  the  people  is  a 
great  desideratum  in  South  America,  for  the  most  useful 
part  of  a  priest's  life  does  not  lie  in  the  routine  work  be- 
tween four  walls,  but  in  seeking  out  the  lost  sheep  of  Israel. 
It  is  clear  that  in  a  large,  modern  city,  like  Buenos  Aires, 
where  the  cassock  is  exposed  to  constant  ridicule,  and  where 
a  very  large  proportion  of  the  foreign  element  hates  the 
very  sight  of  it,  a  priest  becomes  timid,  and  must,  of  neces- 
sity, lack  that  fearless  temper  which  would  lead  him  to  brave 
every  obstacle,  and  go  into  the  enemy's  camp,  if  it  is 
necessary.!' 

In  spite  of  all  the  churches  in  Buenos  Aires,  and  of  the 
labors  of  the  priests  in  Argentina,  and  in  South  America 
generally,  there  is  much  irreligion.  A  considerable  number 
are  actually  hostile  to  the  Church,  while  a  very  large  pro- 
portion, though  professedly  Catholic,  are  indifferent,  as  far 
as  the  practice  of  religion  is  concerned.  The  infidel  litera- 
ture of  the  eighteenth  century,  secret  organizations,  bad  ex- 
ample, and  many  other  causes  have  produced  this  result. 

We  must,  however,  give  credit  to  the  Argentine  clergy  for 
not  compromising  with  the  irreligious  spirit,  even  when  it 
manifests  itself  in  high  quarters.  As  an  instance,  I  may  cite 
tiie  "  Revista  Eclesiastica  del  Arzobispado  de  Buenos  Aires," 
an  official  and  very  clever  review,  published  under  the  aus- 
pices of  the  archbishop.  In  one  of  its  numbers,  among  its 
ecclesiastical  notes,  it  cites  the  "  Pueblo,"  to  show  the  anti- 
Catholic  spirit  of  a  high  public  official,  who,  when  a  com- 
mittee of  ladies  called  upon  him,  to  petition  for  the  estab- 
lishment of  a  bishopric  in  Rosario,  told  them  that  he  would 
in  every  way  oppose  the  measure,  because  Rosario  progressed 
better  without  a  bishop  and  "  the  plague  of  clericalism."  2 

(In  Chile)  the  secular  clergy,  a  highly  esteemed  body  of 
men,  is  recruited  from  the  best  families,  whereby  a  distin- 
guishing mark  is  attached  to  the  Chilean  Church.  The  old 
Friars,  at  one  time  so  active  in  Spanish  America,  while  they 
retain  their  wealth,  have  apparently  lost  much  of  their  pres- 
tige. Though  they  are  edifying  by  their  conduct,  they  do 
not  seem  to   have   kept  pace   with  the  times,  and  the   fact 

^I44»  145-  ^154,  155- 


PRESENT   RELIGIOUS    CONDITIONS         I93 

that  they  have  recruited  their  ranks  too  easily,  with  perhaps 
too  little  discrimination  and  preparation,  has  made  them  de- 
scend somewhat  from  the  commanding  intellectual  position 
they  once  occupied.  That  the  old  orders  in  Chile  are  very 
wealthy  can  easily  be  understood,  when  we  reflect  that  they 
have  been  in  the  country  since  the  conquest,  and,  as  their 
property  has  remained  corporate  and  undivided  in  the  vari- 
ous orders,  it  has  naturally  increased  in  value  during  the 
centuries. 

It  is  evident  that  the  distribution  of  ecclesiastics  in  the 
Church  is  very  unequal,  complaints  meeting  us  from  all  sides 
of  the  scarcity  of  priests,  while,  in  some  countries,  we 
find  monasteries  filled  with  members  of  their  respective 
orders.i 

The  parish  priests  of  Lima  are  well  spoken  of,  though  com- 
plaints are  heard  against  some  of  the  ecclesiastics  from 
Europe.  The  districts  away  from  the  cities,  where  priests 
are  very  isolated,  still  leave  much  to  be  desired,  and,  from 
what  I  could  learn,  there  is  still  room  for  a  general  reforma- 
tion throughout  the  country.  As  contact  with  the  rest  of 
the  world  increases,  railroads  become  more  numerous,  and 
closer  relations  between  the  centers  of  population  are  estab- 
lished, an  amelioration  is  bound  to  come.  The  fact  that  there 
has  been  such  a  marked  improvement  of  late,  gives  hope 
for  better  things  in  the  future.  Unfortunately,  for  the 
Church  in  Peru,  there  are  few  vocations  to  the  priesthood, 
and  the  native  clergy  is  dying  out.  The  Church  will  have 
to  depend  largely  on  importations  from  abroad.^ 

If  you  listen  to  some  of  the  priests,  they  tell  you  that  re- 
ligion is  in  a  very  bad  condition,  that  the  men  do  not  fre- 
quent the  sacraments,  that  the  influence  of  St.  Mark's  Uni- 
versity is  evil,  and  that  a  Catholic  university  is  absolutely 
needed.  On  the  other  hand,  if  you  go  to  some  of  the  churches 
on  Sunday  morning,  you  will  see  them  crowded,  and  visit- 
ing the  prominent  churches,  like  Santo  Domingo,  San  Fran- 
cisco, and  that  of  the  Jesuits,  you  will  observe  a  goodly 
number  at  mass  on  week  days.  Women  are,  of  course,  in 
the  vast  majority,  yet  I  have,  time  and  again,  seen  a  large 
number  of  men  on  week-day  mornings  in  the  church  of  the 
Jesuits.     To  judge  from  appearances,  religion  is  not  on  the 

1228,  229.  2383. 


194  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

decline,  and  the  churches  are  very  much  frequented,  while 
there  is,  surely,  much  piety  among  the  women.i 

As  I  look  over  my  notes,  jotted  down  at  random,  during 
my  Lima  days,  I  read  these  words :  "  How  different  from 
the  Lima  of  my  dreams!  "  Yes;  Lima  was  a  disappointment; 
everything — churches,  convents,  dwellings,  from  the  cathe- 
dral down,  seemed  to  be  in  need  of  repairs;  for  the  hand  of 
decay  was  over  all.^ 

The  foreign  priests  are  bringing  in  a  new  energy, 
but  the  "  hand  of  decay  "  is  over  all.  If  one  need  of 
South  America  is  education,  it  is  clear  that  a  second 
great  need  is  religion.  There  is  a  glamour  over  the 
decay  which  at  first  allures  one,  but  this  soon  passes 
and  the  whole  system  is  seen  in  its  weakness  and  ruin. 
It  is  a  relic,  not  a  prophecy.  It  is  the  echo  of  reced- 
ing footsteps.  The  false  political  ideals,  identified  with 
which  it  came  to  South  America,  have  long  since  passed 
away.  But  there  came  in  the  Church  noble  motives 
and  a  true  life  and  it  lived  on  after  Pizarro  and  Alma- 
gro  and  Valdivia  and  the  adventurers,  after  Gasca 
and  de  Souza  and  the  governors,  after  San  Martin 
and  Bolivar  and  Miranda  and  the  liberators.  But  now 
the  dissolution  of  its  tyranny  is  at  hand.  The  true 
was  tainted  with  the  false  and  shadowed  with  an  ever 
darkening  shadow,  a  shadow  which  in  all  charity  but 
in  the  relentless  truth  we  must  call  a  moral  night.  That 
is  the  light  that  is  now  shining  from  the  Roman  Catho- 
lic Church  over  South  America.  If  religion  has  noth- 
ing to  do  with  morality,  then  it  is  all  well.  We  can 
leave  South  America  alone.  But  if  as  we  believe  re- 
ligion is  nothing  but  a  living  morality,  the  morality 
of  a  true  and  loving  fellowship  with  a  Heavenly 
Father,  a  righteousness  alive  in  Christ,  if  true  religion 

1283,  284.  2  275, 


PRESENT   RELIGIOUS    CONDITIONS         I95 

and  undefiled  is  this,  that  a  man  should  visit  the 
fatherless  and  the  widows  in  their  affliction  and  keep 
himself  unspotted — then  we  are  no  Christians  if  we 
do  not,  whether  American  Protestant  or  American 
Catholic,  carry  such  a  religion  to  South  America. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE   INDIANS 

We  have  already  considered  the  condition  of  the 
Indians  prior  to  the  European  conquest,  the  effect  of 
the  conquest  upon  the  Indian  people  and  the  work 
done  for  them  by  the  Roman  Catholic  missionaries. 
The  Indians  in  the  Jesuit  Missions  were  probably  hap- 
pier and  better  off  than  the  pure  blooded  Indians  have 
ever  been  since.  From  the  wrongs  which  they  suf- 
fered at  the  hands  of  the  conquerors,  as  we  have  seen, 
the  Jesuits  steadily  sought  to  protect  them.  In  Brazil 
they  fought  against  the  enslavement  of  the  Indian 
when  the  early  regulation  permitted  the  colonists  to 
keep  in  slavery  such  Indians  "  as  might  be  seized  on 
a  just  war,  such  as  might  be  sold  by  their  own  parents 
and  such  as  might  sell  themselves."  ^  But  the  protec- 
tion of  the  Jesuits  covered  but  a  small  number  of 
Indians  out  of  the  millions  in  South  America.  The 
general  conditions  were  evil.  The  regulations  just 
quoted  opened  the  door  to  almost  any  desired  enslave- 
ment of  the  natives  in  Brazil.  What  happened  on  the 
West  Coast  we  have  also  seen.  Slavery  simply  wiped 
out  the  people  by  the  million.     This  is  the  darker  side. 

But  some  doubt  the  reliability  of  the  figures  of  deci- 
mation and  there  is  also  another  side.  The  Latin  oc- 
cupation of  South  America  did  not  exterminate  the 

*  Vianna,   "  Memoirs   of  the   State   of  Bahia,"   6i4f. 
196 


THE    INDIANS  I97 

Indian.  On  the  other  hand  it  has  preserved  him  as 
he  was  not  preserved  in  North  America.  The  South 
American  population  of  to-day  contains  perhaps  twenty- 
times  as  many  pure  blooded  Indians  as  are  left  in  the 
United  States  and  Canada,  while  Indian  blood  is  the 
chief  strain  in  the  great  majority  of  the  people  on  the 
western  side  of  the  Continent.  As  a  correspondent 
of  the  London  Times  wrote: 

The  Latin  white  has  not  so  despised  the  Indian  as  to  dis- 
dain the  idea  of  a  union  of  members  of  the  two  races;  to 
the  Anglo-Saxon  the  idea  of  any  such  union  is  repugnant; 
and  so  the  North  American  Indians  have  been  compelled  to 
remain  creatures  apart,  inferior  beings,  outcasts.  Forced  to 
marry  among  those  of  their  own  race  only,  their  diminished 
numbers  have  naturally  led  to  a  great  deal  of  inbreeding 
amongst  the  peoples  of  the  various  tribes,  and  the  inevitable 
result  is  that  they  are  dying  out.  In  South  America  the 
case  is  very  different;  the  white  and  the  Indian  have  mixed 
with  a  fair  amount  of  freedom,  and  the  result  has  been  not 
altogether  harmful  to  either  people.  In  fact,  where  the  inter- 
mixture has  been  most  common,  a  decidedly  fine,  sturdy, 
valorous  race  has  been  evolved — a  race  destined  perhaps  to 
do  great  things,  i- 

It  is  interesting  to  note  the  degree  to  which  the  In- 
dian blood  in  the  South  American  peoples  has  been 
affected  by  the  European  strain.  In  some  lands  like 
Peru  and  Bolivia  there  are  great  masses  of  the  mixed 
blood  population  which  are  dominantly  Indian,  while 
in  Chile  and  Colombia  where  the  Indian  strain  is  very 
heavy,  the  mixed  blood  population,  while  retaining 
many  Indian  qualities,  is  more  strongly  Spanish  in  its 
present  character. 

But  it  is  not  of  the  people  of  mixed  blood  that  we 
are  thinking  in  this  chapter,  but  of  the  true  Indians. 

*The  Times,  London,  South  American  Supplement,  August  30,  1910. 


198  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

Argentina,  The  Argentine  Republic  has  the  largest 
proportion  of  European  blood  in  its  people  and  Uru- 
guay ranks  probably  next  in  this  regard.  The  Indian 
population  of  these  sections  of  South  America  seems 
to  have  been  very  scanty  and  what  there  was  has 
been  either  exterminated  or  absorbed.  In  Uruguay 
there  are  no  pure  Indians  now  and  in  Argentina  not 
many,  except  those  who  come  in  from  Bolivia  and  the 
Paraguayan  Chaco  on  the  north  to  work  in  the  sugar 
factories.  According  to  the  "  Statesman's  Year 
Book  "  there  are  in  the  Argentine  30,000  Indians  and 
in  Paraguay,  50,000. 

Paraguay.  The  largest  body  of  Indians  in  the 
southern  part  of  the  continent  is  in  this  western  por- 
tion of  Paraguay,  called  the  Chaco.  Among  the  In- 
dians in  Paraguay  the  South  American  Missionary 
Society  has  a  long  established  work  at  several  points 
with  about  fifteen  missionaries,  and  a  new  mission 
has  been  recently  organized  primarily  to  carry  on 
"  pioneer  effort  to  evangelize  the  Indians  in  Northern 
Paraguay  and  Matto  Grosso,"  one  of  the  most  interior 
states  of  Brazil.  Its  last  annual  report  states  that  it 
has  work  in  Paraguay  at  Conception,  Horqueta  and 
Santa  Teresa  in  the  department  of  Caaguazu.  A 
speaker  at  the  Ecumenical  Missionary  Conference  in 
New  York  in  1900  gave  an  account  of  these  Chaco 
Indians.  "  The  Chaco,"  he  said,  "  is  a  region  rather 
larger  than  the  whole  of  France,  and  it  is  populated, 
as  far  as  I  can  tell,  by  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  million 
of  heathen  Indians.  These  Indians  have  maintained 
a  virtual  independence  of  the  neighboring  republics 
ever  since  the  first  Spanish  conquerors  landed  in  that 
country;  and  there  are  no  civilized  residents  among 


THE   INDIANS  199 

them  except  the  mission  party."  ^  The  volume  on 
Paraguay  by  Dr.  Jose  Segundo  Decoud,  of  that  coun- 
try, pubHshed  by  the  Bureau  of  the  American  Repub- 
Hcs,  states  that  the  total  Indian  population  of  Para- 
guay is  about  100,000.  The  speaker  at  the  Ecumenical 
Conference  went  on  to  speak  of  the  ideas  of  these 
Indians. 

The  people  live  in  constant  dread  of  devils.  They  are 
afraid  to  go  at  night  to  the  swamps,  because  they  say  these 
swamps  are  the  homes  of  devils.  They  live  in  constant 
dread  of  their  Hves,  on  account  of  the  witch  doctors.  Witch 
doctors  might  send  cats  or  rats,  or  snakes,  or  beetles  into 
the  body,  and  only  by  the  help  of  a  friendly  witch  doctor 
can  one  get  rid  of  them.  Then  they  believe  in  dreams.  The 
Indian  believes  that  when  he  is  dreaming,  his  spirit  really 
leaves  his  body  and  wanders  far  away;  and  while  his  soul 
is  away,  another  wandering  soul  may  enter  in  and  take  posses- 
sion, and  then  his  own  soul  cannot  get  back.  Another  serious 
thing  is  that  they  hold  you  responsible  for  what  they  dream. 
If  they  dream  of  being  killed  by  a  certain  man,  they  hold 
that  man  responsible,  and  think  they  are  justified  in  killing 
him  in  return.  They  also  bury  people  alive  and  practice  in- 
fanticide. It  is  not  done  out  of  cruelty,  but  simply  from  a 
religious  motive.  But  these  savages  are  capable  of  im- 
proving. 2 

Another  worker  among  these  Indians  writes  of  a  visit 
to  those  Hving  in  the  vicinity  of  San  Estaneslao : 

Led  by  a  native  guide,  we  found  the  Indians  hidden  away 
behind  the  shelter  of  almost  impassable  swamps,  across 
which  we  could  not  take  our  horses,  amid  the  most  savage 
conditions,  and  in  great  poverty.  Some  of  them  had  a  little 
maize,  but  for  the  most  part  they  appeared  to  live  on  wild 
fruits,  roots,  reptiles,  caterpillars,  or  anything  procurable  by 
hunting  or  fishing.     For  clothing  they  wore  only  loin-cloths 

1  Report  of  Ecumenical  Missionary  Conference,  New  York,  1900, 
Vol.   I,   481. 

2  Ibid. 


200  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

and  bands  of  women's  hair  twisted  round  the  legs  below  the 
knees  and  round  the  wrists.  Their  faces  were  painted  in 
curious  patterns  with  some  black  pigment,  and  in  some  cases 
were  also  mutilated  by  a  hole  in  the  lower  lip,  through  which 
a  long  appendage  of  resinous  gum  protruded,  hanging  down 
in  front  of  the  chin.  They  were  armed  with  long,  powerful 
bows,  from  which  they  can  discharge,  with  deadly  effect,  long 
barbed  arrows  pointed  with  hard  wood.  Some  of  these 
arrows  measure  over  six  feet  in  length,  and  they  speak  with 
forcible  if  silent  eloquence  for  the  muscular  build  of  the 
people  who  use  them,  especially  when  we  consider  that  the 
men  are  only  of  average  height.  Another  of  their  weapons 
is  the  stone  axe.  This  they  are  said  to  make  by  inserting  a 
piece  of  stone  into  the  live  limb  of  a  growing  tree  and  after- 
wards severing  the  limb  with  sharp  flints  and  scraping  it  into 
shape  for  a  handle  when  the  wood  has  grown  firmly  round 
the  stone.  My  visit  was,  however,  too  brief  for  me  to  see 
for  myself  that  they  do  make  their  axes  in  the  manner  de- 
scribed. We  saw  also  among  them  curiously  made  drums 
which  seem  to  take  the  place  of  the  gourd  rattle  used  by 
some  of  the  other  tribes  to  drive  off  evil  spirits.  Water-pots 
were  also  in  evidence,  most  ingeniously  constructed  with 
beeswax  built  on  a  basket-work  frame  of  fine  cane.  Also 
rude  clay  pottery  made,  without  any  potter's  wheel,  by  roll- 
ing the  clay  between  the  hands  into  long  lines  and  building 
the  pot  up  coil  upon  coil,  kneading  the  coils  into  each  other 
as  the  work  proceeds,  and  smoothing  and  fashioning  the 
pot  with  wet  fingers  till  the  desired  shape  is  produced,  then 
burning  it  till  it  is  hard.  They  had  twine  also,  beautifully 
made  by  themselves  from  fine  cotton-like  fiber,  by  a  process 
of  simply  twisting  it  with  their  fingers  and  rolling  the  strands 
together  on  the  leg.  Some  of  the  women  were  busily  weav- 
ing their  little  loin-cloths  on  rude  square  frames  made  with 
four  branches  of  a  tree  firmly  fixed  in  the  ground.  Indeed, 
in  spite  of  their  miserable  condition,  they  showed  many  evi- 
dences of  intelligence  and  capacity.^ 

Patagonia,     The  conditions  just  described  are  typi- 
cal among  the  uncivilized  Indians.     It  was  into  condi- 

^  South    American    Indians,    March,     1909,    Szi. — Annual    Report    of 
the  Inland-South-America  Missionary  Union. 


THE    INDIANS  201 

tions  very  similar  to  these  that  Titus  Coan  came  on 
his  brief  missionary  venture  among  the  Indians  of 
Patagonia.^  For  a  fascinating  account  of  the  Pata- 
gonian  Indians  the  student  should  read  the  tenth  chap- 
ter of  Darwin's  **  Naturalist's  Voyage  in  the  Beagle." 
It  was  among  these  Indians  and  those  to  the  south  of 
them  that  one  of  the  most  heroic  of  all  missionary  en- 
terprises met  its  tragic  end,  the  mission,  namely,  of 
Captain  Allen  Gardiner.  Those  who  remember  Gar- 
diner and  his  heroic  death  in  Tierra  del  Fuego  will 
wonder  whether  there  are  none  left  of  the  poor  people 
among  whom  he  came  to  work.  Very  few,  and  these 
few  among  the  lowest  people  in  the  world,  naked  or 
clad  only  with  one  loose  skin  rug,  living  in  little  reed 
huts  which  afford  no  shelter,  feeding  upon  mussels  or 
fish  for  which  the  naked  women  dive  into  the  sea,  and 
possessing  no  ambition  for  improvement.  The  total 
population  of  the  province  of  Magellanes,  which  in- 
cludes all  Chilean  Tierra  del  Fuego,  is  17,330.  More 
than  two-thirds  of  this  population  is  in  the  town  of 
Punta  Arenas.  The  rural  population  of  the  province  is 
only  5,131,  and  this  includes  the  large  farming  popula- 
tion, caring  for  the  millions  of  sheep  scattered  over 
these  storm  beaten  hills,  where  in  1878  there  were  but 
185  sheep  in  the  whole  province.  There  cannot  be  more 
than  a  few  hundreds  or  at  the  most  a  thousand,  of 
Indians  in  the  province  and  very  few  more  on  the 
Argentine  side  of  Tierra  del  Fuego.  The  only  work 
among  them  is  the  work  of  the  South  American  Mis- 
sionary Society  at  River  Douglas,  Novaria  Island,  not 
far  from  Spaniard  Harbor,  where  Allen  Gardiner  fell. 
Chile.  The  Araucanian  Indians  of  Chile  were  the 
stiffest  necked  Indians  in  South  America.    The  Span- 

^  Coan,   "Adventures  in   Patagonia,"   51. 


202  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

iards  never  subdued  them  and  the  Chilean  Government 
had  its  own  troubles  with  them.  They  are  now  re- 
duced to  the  little  company  in  the  south  central  section 
of  Chile.  The  census  of  1907  gave  the  total  number 
of  Araucanian  Indians  as  49,719  men  and  51,399 
women.  Nearly  one-half  of  them  are  in  the  one  prov- 
ince of  Cautin  and  another  quarter  in  the  adjoining 
province  of  Valdivia.  They  have  a  religion  not  un- 
like that  of  the  Alaska  Indians,  with  one  language, 
unwritten  until  the  missionaries  reduced  it  to  writing. 
The  missionaries  have  now  Genesis,  Acts  and  part  of 
Revelation  translated  into  Araucanian.  The  South 
American  Missionary  Society  of  England  has  a  good 
mission  among  these  Araucanian  or  Mapuche  In- 
dians, with  three  stations  at  Temuco,  Maquehere  (or 
Quepe),  and  Cholchal  with  churches,  hospital  and  in- 
dustrial school.  The  Indian  strain  in  the  Chilean  peo- 
ple is  the  Araucanian  strain  and  Chile 

has  in  this  groundwork  the  best  fighting  material  to  be  found 
in  South  America  to-day.  That  is  not  to  be  wondered  at 
when  one  considers  both  the  ancient  soldierly  qualities  of 
the  Spaniard  and  the  noble  fierceness  of  the  Araucanian, 
who  maintained  his  independence  throughout  a  war  with 
Spain  that  lasted  close  on  three  hundred  years,  and  was 
never  vanquished.  Though  the  Indians  of  Chile  are  a  van- 
ishing race,  as  a  separate  entity,  largely  owing  to  the  habits 
of  intemperance,  they,  in  common  with  the  Peruvian  Indians, 
have  acquired,  they  have  flourishing  descendants  in  the  bulk 
of  the  people  of  Chile,  whose  national  hero,  it  is  worth  while 
to  note,  is  no  man  of  Spanish  blood,  but  the  Araucanian 
cacique  Lautaro,  the  greatest  military  chieftain  South  Amer- 
ica has  produced  with  the  single  exception  of  San  Martin. ^ 

Brazil.     The  largest  number  of  wild  Indians  to  be 
found  in  any  South  American  country  is  believed  to 

*The  Times,  London,  South  American  Supplement,  August  30,  1910. 


THE   INDIANS  203 

be  in  Brazil.  When  the  Portuguese  came  there  were 
four  great  Indian  famihes  spread  over  Brazil  and  ad- 
jacent countries. 

The  Tupy-Guaranys  occupied  one-fourth  of  Brazil,  all  of 
Paraguay  and  Uruguay,  and  much  of  Bolivia  and  the  Argen- 
tine, and  it  is  probable  that  the  original  seats  of  this  family 
were  in  the  central  tablelands  or  in  Paraguay.  All  Tupy 
Indians  spoke  dialects  of  one  language,  which  the  Jesuit 
missionaries  soon  reduced  to  grammatical  and  literary  form, 
and  which  became  a  lingua  franca  that  was  understood  from 
the  Plate  to  the  Amazon.  Back  of  the  coast  Tupys  were  the 
Botocudos,  the  most  degraded  and  intractable  of  Brazilian 
savages,  remnants  of  whom  still  survive  in  their  original 
seats  in  Espirito  Santo,  Minas,  and  Sao  Paulo.  The  Caribs, 
with  whom  students  of  the  history  of  the  Caribbean  Sea 
are  familiar,  originated  in  the  plains  of  Goyaz  and  Matto 
Grosso  and  emigrated  as  far  north  as  the  Antilles.  The 
Arawaks  were  most  numerous  in  Guiana  and  on  the  Lower 
Amazon,  but  were  also  spread  over   Central  Brazil. 

The  Brazilian  Indians  did  not  survive  the  white  man's  com- 
ing to  as  large  an  extent  as  in  Spanish-America.  The  pure 
Indian  is  found  in  Brazil  only  in  regions  where  the  white 
man  has  not  thought  it  worth  while  to  take  possession,  and 
the  proportion  of  Indian  blood  is  much  smaller  than  in  sur- 
rounding countries.  In  many  localities,  evidences  of  Indian 
descent  are  so  rare  as  to  be  remarkable.^ 

The  number  of  Indians  now  left  in  Brazil  is  un- 
known. The  Government  census  of  1890,  one  of  the 
last  official  attempts  at  the  hopeless  task  of  taking  a 
census  in  Brazil,  gives  the  number  as  1,300,000.  Ordi- 
narily it  is  estimated  at  from  1,500,000  to  2,220,000, 
but  some  travellers  have  doubled  these  figures  and 
other  students  believe  that  the  numbers  are  far  small- 
er. A  government  surveyor  told  us  there  were  not 
5,000  pure  Indians  in  all  the  coast  states.  Dr.  W. 
C.  Farabee  of  the  Peabody  Museum,  who  has  been  in 

*  Dawson,  "  The  South  American  Republics,"  Vol.  I,  zggi. 


204  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

South  America  in  connection  with  the  De  Milhau- 
iiarvard  South  American  Expedition  studying  the 
Indians,  writes  in  a  personal  letter: 

No  attempt  has  ever  been  made  at  an  enumeration  of  the 
Indians  of  South  America.  Several  tribes  in  isolated  sections 
have  so  far  escaped  the  influence  of  civilization  and  religion. 
The  early  Spanish  missions  established  on  the  headwaters  of 
the  Amazon  were  nearly  all  destroyed  in  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, so  that  to-day  the  Church  has  very  little  influence  any- 
where on  the  Amazon,  or,  in  other  words,  there  is  an  area 
in  Central  South  America  two-thirds  the  size  of  the  United 
States  in  which  primitive  religion  prevails. 

Iquitos  (in  Peru  on  the  Upper  Amazon),  with  her  15,000 
to  20,000  inhabitants  (whites  and  Indians),  has  no  church 
or  religious  organization  of  any  kind — an  excellent  place  for 
the  right  man  who  is  not  afraid  of  a  deadly  climate  which 
carries  away  hundreds  every  year  without  the  comfort  of  a 
religious  adviser.  The  Indian  needs  religious  teaching  much 
less  than  the  white  man  in  those  countries. 

Most  of  the  Brazilian  Indians  are  utterly  wild  and 
untamed.  The  great  majority  of  them  have  never 
been  seen  by  white  men.  Their  ways  are  the  primi- 
tive ways  of  the  savage..  There  are  interesting  notes 
upon  them  in  Bates'  "  A  Naturalist  on  the  Amazon  '* 
and  Cook's  **  By  Horse,  Canoe  and  Float  through  the 
Wilderness  of  Brazil."  A  deputation  from  the  Eng- 
lish Baptist  Missionary  Society  made  some  investiga- 
tion of  the  Indians  in  southern  Brazil  in  1909  and  in 
its  report  summarized  from  the  accounts  of  the  Sale- 
sian  priests  who  are  at  work  among  the  Bororos  some 
of  the  facts  about  this  one  tribe.  These  will  be  suf- 
ficiently illustrative: 

The  Bororos  (sometimes  called  also  Coroados)  are  the 
largest,  most  widely  distributed  tribe  of  all.  They  are  to  be 
found  on  the  east  of  the  State  from  the  Goyaz  boundary  to 
some  forty  miles  east  of  Cuiaba,  and  to  the  south  of  Cuiaba 


THE   INDIANS  205 

as  far  as  Coxim.  They  are  usually  in  small  parties  of  twenty 
to  fifty  in  number,  and  in  part  at  least  are  less  nomadic  than 
the  smaller  tribes.  They  are  tribal  in  feeling,  not  regarding 
Bororos  of  other  villages  as  their  enemies;  but  those  in  the 
south  and  east  wage  war  unceasing  against  the  Cayapos. 
They  are  men  of  tall  stature,  large-boned,  hairless  faces,  but 
with  the  hair  of  the  head  thick  and  black  and  long,  large 
cheek-bones,  large  square  lower  jaws,  with  decided  prog- 
nathism. Eyes  small,  narrow;  features  Chinese-like.  The 
men  do  not  show  signs  of  age,  although  some  we  saw  were 
said  to  be  upwards  of  seventy  years  of  age.  Their  costume 
in  the  forest  is  the  "  ba,"  a  leaf  of  the  maize  envelope,  and  a 
coating  of  dirt  to  keep  off  the  blood-sucking  insects.  In 
their  villages,  there  may  be  several  "  captains,"  or  elders,  who 
direct  their  affairs;  no  one  has  authority  over  all  of  the  in- 
habitants, the  test  for  chieftainship  being  the  singing  of  the 
Bacururu.  Orders  for  the  ensuing  day  are  sung  by  one  of 
the  chiefs  in  the  evening,  together  with  his  commendations 
and  rebukes  of  any  who  that  day  have  failed  in  the  duties 
assigned  to  them.  The  men  eat  in  common  in  their  assem- 
bly hut — the  "  baito."  They  have  exorcists,  fetish  men,  called 
"  Bari,"  and  believe  in  God,  "  Marebba,"  who  is  good,  eternal, 
has  a  mother  and  a  very  powerful  son.  They  have  also  a 
devil,  "  Bope,"  who  inhabits  the  tops  of  trees  and  mountains. 
God  is  beautiful,  rich,  well  clothed ;  "  Bope  "  is  ugly,  infects 
their  food,  and  has  to  be  exorcised  by  the  Bari.  They  be- 
lieve in  the  transmigration  of  souls  and  in  a  reward  for  the 
good,  while  the  bad  experience  an  unquenchable  hunger  and 
thirst. 

The  "  Baris "  have  the  power  to  evoke  departed  spirits, 
and  do  so  by  a  piece  of  wood,  ten  inches  by  four  inches, 
whirled  round  the  head  at  the  end  of  a  string.  At  this  sound 
the  women  flee  and  cover  the  head;  the  death  penalty  is  the 
result  of  being  too  inquisitive.  Their  mode  of  burial  is  pe- 
culiar. For  two  days  they  "  wake  "  the  corpse,  and  then  bury 
it  for  twenty  days  in  a  very  shallow  excavation,  with  a  mat 
only  for  covering.  At  the  end  of  this  time  they  remove  it 
to  the  neighboring  stream  and  wash  the  bones,  which  they 
place  in  a  specially  made  basket.  This  is  carried  to  the  men's 
assembly  house,  and  the  skull  is  decorated  with  short,  col- 
ored  feathers   in   patterns,   while   the   relatives   gash   them- 


206  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

selves  till  the  blood  rolls  down  them.  Then  head  and  bones 
are  placed  in  another  basket  and  put  out  of  sight  in  a  place 
not  generally  known. 

Their  arms  are  bows  of  "  arueira,"  a  black  wood  similar 
to  the  African  palisanda,  measuring  some  six  feet  in  length, 
and  their  arrows  are  six  feet  long,  of  which  four  feet  is 
reed,  and  the  two  feet  of  point  is  "  arueri,"  with  a  head  of 
bone  from  the  thigh-bones  of  birds.  The  arrow  is  straight, 
feathered  for  about  eight  inches.* 

There  is  a  small  government  reservation  of  Indians 
near  Para  where  there  are  1,500  or  so  among  whom 
the  Roman  Catholic  Church  is  working,  and  there!  are 
still  remnants  of  the  work  which  that  Church  did  in 
the  days  of  the  Jesuits  at  Villa  Rica  and  eleswhere  in 
northwestern  Parana.  Old  bridges  and  monasteries 
and  roads  long  abandoned  recall  the  days  in  the  six- 
teenth century  when  the  Jesuits  had  great  estates  op- 
erated by  thousands  of  Indian  serfs  in  the  region 
where  now  Brazil  and  Paraguay  and  Uruguay  meet. 
On  the  upper  Amazon,  as  Dr.  Farabee  says,  practi- 
cally nothing  is  being  done. 

Bolivia.  In  Bolivia  and  Peru  one  comes  upon  the 
Indian  problem  in  South  America  in  a  very  definite 
and  practical  form.  According  to  the  Bolivian  ofhcial 
statement  there  are  903,126  Indians  in  Bolivia,  and 
485,293  mestizos  or  half-breeds  or  cholos.  The  In- 
dians, mestizos  and  whites  are  curiously  distributed 
in  the  various  departments  or  provinces.  I  pick  out 
the  principal  ones: 

Indian  Mestizo  White 

La   Paz 333,421  43,100  36,255 

Potosi    186,947  89,159  21,713 

Cochabamba    7S,5i4  169,161  60,605 

Santa   Cruz    94,526  44,248  59,470 

»  Report  of  the  Deputation  to  South  America,  April,  1909-February, 
1910,  16. 


Indians  In  Bolivia 


Loads   of   Sugar   Cane,    Bahia,   Brazil 


THE    INDIANS  207 

The  mestizos  are  not  most  numerous  where  the  In- 
dians are  most  common.  And  it  is  of  interest  that 
the  mestizos  are  less  numerous  in  the  section  where 
the  Indians  are  Aymaras.  Of  the  900,000  Indians 
perhaps  two-thirds  or  less  are  Quichuas  and  one-third 
or  more  Aymaras.  The  Government  Geografia  says 
that  91  per  cent  of  the  Indians  are  subject  to  law, 
and  nine  per  cent  in  a  full  state  of  barbarism.  Some 
are  called  cannibals.  We  saw  in  the  La  Paz  prison 
some  Indians  who  had  been  convicted  of  killing  and 
eating  some  liberal  soldiers  entrapped  in  a  church  by 
a  conservative  priest  and  delivered  to  the  Indians. 
Since  1878,  the  Geografia  adds,  the  race  has  been 
"  wounded  to  death."  That  year  famine  and  drought 
brought  pest  and  these  were  followed  by  alcoholism, 
and  now  the  birth  rate  is  less  than  the  death  rate. 
Nevertheless  according  to  the  government  statement 
the  numbers  have  increased  since  1846  when  there 
are  said  to  have  been  701,558  Indians  out  of  a  popu- 
lation of  1,373,896.  This  would  leave  662,338  mes- 
tizos and  whites.  On  the  basis  of  these  figures  the 
Indians  have  increased  201,538,  or  29  per  cent,  and 
the  rest  of  the  population  only  54,043,  or  8  per  cent. 
The  Geografia  lays  the  blame  for  the  slow  progress 
of  the  country  largely  on  the  Indian  population  and 
its  unwillingness  to  accept  any  innovation. 

There  are  those  who  deny  that  these  Indians  are 
capable  of  improvement,  and  the  Government  has  met 
with  small  success  in  the  few  efforts  made  for  them. 
It  has  perhaps  a  score  of  traveling  teachers  who  go 
about  holding  schools,  and  offers,  we  were  told,  the 
sum  of  twenty  bolivianos  for  each  Indian  taught  to 
read  and  write,  an  attainment  not  eagerly  sought  be- 
cause it  lays  the  Indian  open  to  conscription,  army 


208  SOUTH    AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

service  being  the  duty  of  full  citizens  and  literacy 
being  a  requirement  for  full  citizenship.  The  Bolivian 
Indians  look  very  much  like  our  own  North  American 
Indians,  but  they  have  never  had  their  savage  ways. 
They  are  a  mild,  industrious,  unambitious  people, 
though  a  few  successful  men  including  at  least  one 
president,  have  come  out  from  them.  They  are 
counted  Roman  Catholic,  but  the  Church  has  done 
nothing  for  them  in  the  way  of  education  or  enlighten- 
ment,  and  in  many  places  they  have  no  attachment  to 
it.  In  Professor  Bingham's  "  Across  South  Amer- 
ica," there  are  some  interesting  notes  on  the  Quichuas 
and  Aymaras,  the  attitude  of  the  white  Bolivians  to 
them,  and  the  general  political  conditions  in  Bolivia  in 
consequence  of  this  large  and  backward  Indian  ele- 
ment: 

There  is  no  doubt  about  the  Quichuas  being  a  backward 
race.  From  the  earliest  historical  times  these  poor  Indians 
have  virtually  been  slaves.  Bred  up  to  look  upon  subjection 
as  their  natural  lot,  they  bear  it  as  the  dispensation  of  Provi- 
dence. The  Incas  treated  them  well,  so  far  as  we  can  judge, 
and  took  pains  to  see  that  the  irrigation  works,  the  foot- 
paths over  the  mountains,  the  suspension  bridges  over  the 
raging  torrents  and  tambos  for  the  convenience  of  travellers 
should  all  be  kept  in  good  condition.  The  gold-hunting  Span- 
ish conquistadores,  on  the  other  hand,  had  no  interest  in  the 
servile  Quichuas  further  than  to  secure  their  services  as 
forced  laborers  in  the  mines.  The  modern  Bolivians  have 
done  little  to  improve  their  condition.  ... 

How  much  the  extremely  severe  conditions  of  life  that 
prevail  on  this  arid  plateau  have  had  to  do  in  breaking  the 
spirit  of  the  race  is  a  question.  It  is  a  generally  accepted 
fact  that  a  race  who  are  dependent  for  their  living  on  irri- 
gating ditches,  can  easily  be  conquered.  All  that  the  invad- 
ing army  has  to  do  is  to  destroy  the  dams,  ruin  the  crops, 
and  force  the  inhabitants  to  face  starvation. 

The  Quichua  shows  few  of  the  traits  which  we  ordinarily 


THE    INDIANS  209 

connect  with  mountaineers.  His  country  is  too  forlorn  to 
give  him  an  easy  living  or  much  time  for  thought.  He  is 
half  starved  nearly  all  the  time.  His  only  comfort  comes 
from  chewing  coca  leaves.  .  .  .  Coca  has  deadened  his  sen- 
sibilities to  a  degree  that  passes  comprehension.  It  has  made 
him  stupid,  willing  to  submit  to  almost  any  injury,  lacking 
in  all  ambition,  caring  for  almost  none  of  the  things  which 
we  consider  the  natural  desires  of  the  human  heart.  .  .  . 

The  truth  is,  the  Quichua  not  only  has  no  ambition,  he 
has  long  ago  ceased  to  care  whether  you  or  he  or  anybody 
else  has  more  than  just  barely  enough  to  keep  body  and  soul 
together.  .  .  .1 

The  Quichuas  are  a  mild  and  inoffensive  folk,  but  the 
Aymaras,  heavier  in  build,  coarser  featured,  and  more  vigor- 
ous in  general  appearance,  are  brutally  insolent  in  their  man- 
ner and  unruly  in  their  behavior.  We  were  even  regaled 
with  stories  of  their  cannibalism  on  certain  occasions,  but  un- 
fortunately had  no  opportunity  of  proving  the  truth  of  such 
statements.  Neither  Quichuas  nor  Aymaras  are  at  all  thrifty, 
and  we  were  everywhere  impressed  with  their  great  poverty. 
Their  clothing  is  generally  the  merest  rags  and  their  food  is 
as  meager  as  can  possibly  be  imagined.  Coca  and  chicha 
(i.  e.,  cocaine  and  alcohol)  seem  to  be  the  beginning  and  end 
of  life  with  them. 

It  is  unfortunate  that  no  efforts  are  being  made  to  establish 
a  good  system  of  public  schools  and  enforce  attendance.  One 
of  the  greatest  difficulties  in  the  way  of  such  an  undertaking 
is  the  fact  that  the  Indians  not  only  have  no  interest  in 
securing  the  education  of  their  children,  but  also  that  they 
find  it  to  their  advantage  to  speak  their  own  tongue  rather 
than  Spanish.  Probably  less  than  fifteen  per  cent  of  the 
population  speak  Spanish  with  fluency.  They  are  lacking  in 
ambition,  seem  to  have  no  desire  to  raise  produce,  bear  ill- 
will  towards  strangers,  and  prefer  not  to  assist  travellers  to 
pass  through  their  country.  Even  if  a  man  has  plenty  of 
chickens  and  sheep,  he  will  generally  refuse  to  sell  any  al- 
though you  offer  him  an  excellent  price.  With  coaxing  and 
coca  you  may  succeed.  Sometimes  he  pretends  not  to  under- 
stand Spanish  and  replies  to  all  questions  in  guttural  Quichua 
or  Aymara. 

*  104-108. 


210  SOUTH    AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

•  So  large  a  percentage  of  the  population  are  Indians  that 
nearly  all  the  whites  are  actively  interested  in  politics  and 
would  like  to  be  officeholders.  It  is  said  that  all  elections 
are  merely  forms  through  which  the  party  in  power  goes, 
in  order  to  maintain  its  supremacy. 

The  majority  of  the  inhabitants  are  in  no  sense  fitted  to 
be  the  citizens  of  a  republic.  However  much  the  theoretical 
lover  of  liberty  may  bemoan  the  fact  that  Bolivia  is  in  reality 
an  oligarchy,  one  cannot  help  feeling  that  that  is  the  only 
possible  outcome  of  an  attempt  to  simulate  the  forms  of  a 
republic  in  a  country  whose  inhabitants  are  so  deficient  both 
mentally  and  morally.^ 

Peru.  Of  Peru's  total  population  of  3,500,000, 
one-third  are  ethnic  crossbreeds  and  1,700,000  are 
Indians.  There  are  scores  of  minor  divisions  of  the 
Indians  as  there  are  also  in  Bolivia,  but  the  Indians 
of  Peru  are  almost  all  grouped  among  the  Quichuas. 
They  are  less  independent  than  the  Aymaras  of  north- 
ern Bolivia,  and  it  becomes  less  difficult  after  moving 
among  them,  as  Professor  Bingham  discovered,  to  un- 
derstand the  wonderful  exploits  of  the  early  Spanish 
conquerors.  Equipped  as  they  were  and  supported  by 
strange  traditions,  and  as  superior  to  the  Indians  in 
intelligence  as  they  surpassed  them  in  recklessness,  a 
small  company  of  such  adventurers  as  Pizarro  and  his 
men  could  easily  do  what  they  did.  A  small  pack  of 
wolves  can  scatter  a  million  sheep,  and  the  Indians  of 
the  Incas  were  nothing  more  than  sheep  against  the 
Spaniards.  With  the  Aztecs  and  the  Araucanians  it 
was  different,  and  Cortez  and  Valdivia  had  no  such 
simple  task  as  Pizarro,  whose  great  conquest  was  of 
nature  and  not  of  man. 

Mrs.  Turner,  a  Peruvian,  with  Indian  blood  in  her 
veins,  has  written  a  novel  depicting  the  present  condi- 

*  153-155. 


THE    INDIANS  211 

tion  of  the  Peruvian  Indians  and  protesting  against 
their  wrongs.  It  is  entitled  "  Birds  Without  a  Nest " 
and  an  English  translation  is  published  by  Thynne, 
of  Paternoster  Row,  London.  The  story  turns  around 
a  characteristic  South  American  perplexity.  A  young 
man  and  woman  about  to  marry  find  that  they  are 
children  of  the  same  priest.  Europeans  on  the  west 
coast  declare  that  the  Indians  of  Peru  are  the  least 
cared  for,  the  most  wronged  Indians  on  the  coast, 
that  they  have  no  ambition  for  independent  power 
because,  on  the  whole,  they  suffer  less  when  serfs  of 
some  man  strong  enough  to  protect  them  from  others, 
however  tributary  they  may  be  to  him.  Back  in  the 
eastern  valleys  there  are  many  little  known  tribes 
and  large  numbers  of  Indians  who  have  no 
communal  life.  In  a  paper  entitled  "  Some  Cus- 
toms of  the  Macheyengas,"  Dr.  W.  C.  Farabee  states 
that  this  tribe  has  no  religious  ideas.  They  make  no 
offerings,  nor  prayers.  "  There  is  no  communion  be- 
tween themselves  and  any  Spirit.  They  are  uncon- 
trolled in  the  slightest  degree  by  any  power  or  influence 
outside  of  themselves.  Thus  they  live  remarkably  free 
from  the  conventions  and  restraints  of  custom  and 
religion." 

While  in  Arequipa  in  1909  we  met  a  Peruvian  law- 
yer, a  "  free  thinker  "  in  religion,  but  greatly  con- 
cerned for  the  unhappy  condition  of  the  Indians  in  his 
country.  He  was  working  in  the  interest  of  the  es- 
tablishment of  schools  among  them.  There  were  now 
600  schools  in  the  Spanish  language  among  the  Indians 
in  Peru,  he  said,  supported  by  the  Government.  The 
race  was  capable  of  improvement.  Two  Presidents 
of  Peru  had  come  from  it.  The  Government  wanted 
to  teach  the  Indians  in   Spanish  but  they  could  not 


212  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

learn  in  such  schools  and,  moreover,  they  were  not  al- 
lowed by  their  masters  to  go  to  Spanish  schools  on  the 
great  farms,  as  the  owners  found  that  with  a  knowl- 
edge of  Spanish  they  would  become  discontented  and 
aspiring.  He  felt  sure  there  would  be  no  such  oppo- 
sition to  schools  in  the  Quichua  language,  which  more- 
over would  give  the  only  possible  education  as  the 
Indians  did  not  know  Spanish  and  in  Spanish  schools 
accomplished  no  more  than  mechanical  memorization. 
Eighty  per  cent  of  the  Indians  in  Peru,  this  advocate 
said,  were  serfs,  the  rest  free  Indians,  but  all  were 
subject  to  constant  injustice,  were  often  seized  illegally 
by  night  for  military  service,  the  army  being  made  up 
of  Indian  conscripts,  and  were  incapable  through  igno- 
rance of  Spanish  of  securing  any  redress  in  the  courts. 
The  present  administration,  he  added,  had  suppressed 
some  of  the  schools  among  the  Indians  which  had 
been  supported  by  the  preceding  administration. 

The  wild  Indians  are  on  the  east  side  of  Peru  along 
the  upper  tributaries  of  the  Amazon.  The  great  body 
of  the  Indians  are  on  the  high  plateaus  and  these  are 
Quichuas.  In  their  social  and  moral  condition  Dr.  T. 
B.  Wood,  one  of  the  veteran  missionary  workers  in 
South  America,  sees  a  special  opportunity  and  need: 

Their  social  condition,  being  not  that  of  savages,  dwelling 
in  tents  or  wigwams,  forming  scattered  tribes,  sustained  by 
hunting  and  fishing;  but  that  of  dense  communities  living  in 
towns  and  villages  of  substantial  houses,  and  sustained  by- 
farming,  grazing  and  manufacturing,  all  on  a  petty  scale  but 
ready  for  development  on  a  grand  scale  as  fast  as  the  people 
can  be  trained  to  modern  methods  and  uplifted  by  moral  re- 
generation. 

Their  moral  condition  being  on  the  decline,  they  are 
lower  in  the  moral  scale  to-day  than  they  were  under  the 
Incas.    The  friars  and  priests  who  swarmed  in  among  them 


THE    INDIANS  213 

with  the  Spanish  conquest  and  have  dominated  their  religious 
hfe  ever  since,  instead  of  teaching  them  better  things,  have 
kept  them  in  ignorance  and  superstition,  and  exploited  their 
vices  to  get  money  from  them,  for  nearly  four  hundred 
years.  Their  numerous  religious  festivals  and  saints'  days, 
instead  of  stimulating  them  to  holiness  and  usefulness,  on  the 
contrary  overvi^helm  them  with  temptations  to  drunkenness 
and  other  forms  of  moral  relaxation,  sinking  each  new  gen- 
eration lower  than  its  predecessors. 

Colombia  and  Ecuador.  It  is  estimated  that  in 
Colombia  there  are  250,000  Indians.  Some  people 
call  almost  the  whole  population  of  Colombia  Indian, 
and  there  is  doubtless  a  large  element  of  Indian  blood 
in  it,  but  the  people  speak  Spanish  and  are  Latin 
Americans  and  not  Indians.  The  best  information  we 
could  find  gave  the  total  pure  Indian  population  of 
Colombia  as  not  over  250,000.  On  the  boat  on  which 
we  went  up  the  Magdalena  River  to  Honda  en  route 
to  Bogota  there  was  the  young  son  of  the  king  of  the 
Indians  near  the  Gulf  of  Darien,  who  number  perhaps 
20,000  or  more.  He  was  a  very  bright,  attractive  lit- 
tle boy,  who  spoke  no  Spanish  but  was  being  taken  to 
Bogota  by  a  Colombia  officer  to  be  placed  in  the 
government  military  school.  There  is  another  tribe 
of  Indians  of  about  the  same  size  in  the  Santa  Marta 
region  in  northeastern  Colombia,  where  there  are  rem- 
nants of  old  paved  roads  showing  that  there  was  once 
a  considerable  Indian  civilization  here.  There  are 
some  small  scattered  tribes  of  savage  Indians  back 
from  the  Magdalena  River.  The  largest  Indian  popu- 
lation, however,  is  in  Boyaca  to  the  southeast  of  Bo- 
gota. A  prominent  lawyer  returning  to  Bogota  from 
an  exile  now  ended  by  the  retirement  of  Reyes  told 
us  that  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  as  far  as  he  knew, 
was  doing  nothing  in  Colombia  for  the  Indians  whom 


214  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

he  estimated  at  200,000,  but  that  he  knew  it  was 
working  among  the  Indians  of  Ecuador,  of  whom  he 
said  there  were  600,000.  Of  Ecuador  the  *'  States- 
man's Year  Book "  says  that  the  bulk  of  the  total 
population  of  1,400,000  is  Indian,  that  the  inhabitants 
of  pure  European  blood  are  few,  those  of  mixed  blood 
about  400,000  and  the  civilized  Indians  about  200,000. 
These  Indians  of  Colombia  and  Ecuador  do  not  speak 
the  widely  used  Quichua  tongue,  but  their  own  dialects. 
One  who  has  lived  among  the  Ecuador  Indians 
writes  of  them  : 

They  are  certainly  sunken  the  lowest  of  all  the  inhabitants 
both  mentally  and  morally,  and  I  understand  that  it  has  been 
even  acknowledged  by  Catholic  writers  that  their  condition 
is  worse  now  than  when  they  were  first  discovered  and  con- 
quered by  the  united  representatives  of  the  Spanish  Church 
and  state.  If  such  is  the  case,  we  can  safely  say  that  there 
is  no  hope  for  the  Indians  from  their  present  masters.  It 
is  true  that  some  commendable  efforts  have  been  made  by 
the  present  liberal  government  to  better  their  condition  in  the 
matter  of  higher  wages  and  protection  against  abuse,  but  to 
really  elevate  and  educate  them  beyond  the  covers  of  the 
Catholic  catechism,  nothing  has  been  done  or  can  be  done, 
except  through  the  powerful  medium  of  the  Gospel  of  Christ. 
And  to  accomplish  anything  in  this  way,  the  upper  classes 
must  be  touched  at  the  same  time,  for  the"  greater  part  of 
the  wretchedness  of  the  Indians  is  the  result  of  the  white 
man's  attitude  of  mind  toward  them.  The  damage  done 
them,  equally  through  a  false  religion  and  through  lordly 
oppression,  has  been  of  three  centuries'  duration,  and  mere 
legislative  measures  can  never  cure  ills  of  such  a  confirmed 
nature.! 

Summary.  The  following  table  gives  the  probable 
Indian  population  of  South  America.  The  estimates 
err,  if  at  all,  on  the  side  of  excess. 

^  C.  S.  Detweiler,  "  Social  Conditions  in  Ecuador,"  The  Gospel  Mes- 
sage,  November,    1901, 


THE    INDIANS  215 

Brazil   1,300,000 

Argentina    30,000 

Paraguay    50,000 

Chile    102,118 

Bolivia    900,000 

Peru     1,700,000 

Ecuador    1,000,000 

Colombia    250,000 

Estimates  of  the  total  number  of  Indians  in  South 
America  given  to  us  ranged  from  3,000,000  to  15,000,- 
000,  and  of  the  Quichua  Indians  alone  from  2,000,000 
to  6,000,000.  The  men  who  had  travelled  most 
through  interior  South  America  were  as  a  rule  the 
most  conservative  in  their  estimates.  One  of  these, 
Mr.  Wenberg,  formerly  agent  of  the  American  Bible 
Society  in  BoHvia,  who  had  travelled  thousands  of 
miles  in  the  heart  of  South  America,  told  us  he  did 
not  believe  there  were  more  than  5,000,000  Indians  in 
Brazil,  Argentina,  Paraguay,  Bolivia  and  Peru.  There 
are  at  least  seven  missions  working  among  the  Indians. 
The  most  needy  and  uncared  for  sections  are  the  In- 
dians of  the  Amazon,  the  Aymaras  of  Bolivia,  the 
Quichuas  of  Bolivia  and  Peru,  and  the  tribes  of  Ecua- 
dor and  Colombia.  There  are  savages  among  these 
Indians,  but  they  are  not  unapproachable.  The  great- 
er difficulties  are  due  to  climate  and  the  geographical 
inaccessibility  of  the  people  and  to  the  moral  and  spir- 
itual needs,  but  these  are  precisely  the  reasons  for  our 
going  to  them.  The  South  American  Governments 
have  not  sought  to  do  much  among  them,  and  the  rub- 
ber trade  and  other  enterprises  have  despoiled  them. 
Gruesome  stories  are  told  of  their  exploitation  in  the 
rubber  regions.  The  Quichuas  and  Aymaras  are  more 
hopeful  than  our  North  American  Indians  and  ade- 
quate educational  and  evangelistic  work  among  them 


2l6  SOUTH    AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

would  surely  effect  in  a  few  generations  greater  im- 
provements than  have  been  wrought  among  them  by 
the  agencies  which  have  controlled  them  for  the  past 
four  hundred  years. 

The  South  American  Indians  on  the  Andean  plateau 
are  a  patient,  saddened,  hopeless  people.  What  the 
London  Times  says  of  the  Peruvian  Indians  might  be 
said  in  greater  or  less  measure  of  all  these  peoples 
from  Venezuela  down  through  Bolivia: 

The  Indians  of  Peru  were  never  the  fine  fighters  that  the 
Araucanians  were,  with  the  wild  love  of  liberty  that  led  the 
warriors  of  that  race  to  their  greatest  deeds;  but  they  cer- 
tainly produced  men  of  military  genius  in  the  days  before  the 
Conquest,  men  who  were  not  mere  fighters,  but  were  great 
"organizers  of  victory,"  masters  of  strategy,  and,  in  a  word, 
scientific  soldiers  of  the  modern  type.  Essentially,  however, 
they  were  a  peace-loving  people ;  and  so  they  have  remained, 
patient,  submissive  as  Chinese,  docile,  long-suffering  as  sheep. 
To  remember  their  great  and  noble  past,  the  governing 
instinct  their  rulers  displayed,  and  their  mighty  civilization, 
and  to  see  them  now  with  their  individuality  crushed  out  as 
the  result  of  their  long  years  of  slavery,  and  suffering  a  heavy 
death-rate,  owing  to  acquired  intemperance,  to  poverty,  and 
to  the  insanitary  conditions  in  which  they  live,  is  the  saddest 
thing  in  South  America.^ 

Perhaps,  though,  this  is  not  the  saddest  thing.  But 
the  fact  that  there  are  yet  sadder  things  shows  how 
deep  is  the  need  and  how  strong  is  the  appeal  from 
this  continent  of  long-neglected  opportunity. 

*  The  Times,  London,  South  American  Supplement,  August  30,  1910. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

PROTESTANT    MISSIONS    IN    SOUTH 
AMERICA 

The  first  effort  of  the  Protestant  Churches  after 
the  Reformation  to  engage  in  foreign  missions  was 
that  of  the  Church  in  Geneva  to  send  the  Gospel  to 
Brazil.  A  detailed  account  of  this  effort  is  given  in 
the  second  chapter  of  Parkman's  ''  Pioneers  of  France 
in  the  New  World."  The  mission  lasted  only  a  little 
more  than  ten  years,  the  Portuguese  driving  out  the 
French  in  1567  and  destroying  the  hope  of  a  French 
Protestant  influence  which  might  have  given  Brazil 
an  entirely  different  destiny. 

The  next  Protestant  effort  was  by  the  Dutch,  who 
invaded  Brazil  and  captured  Bahia  in  1624  and  who 
brought  Dutch  ministers  with  them,  alleging  as  part  of 
their  purpose  in  invading  South  America  the  introduc- 
tion of  a  pure  religion.  Much  of  the  religion  which 
they  brought  was  as  formal  as  that  which  they  sought 
to  displace,  but  there  were  also  excellent  men  among 
them  who  published  good  religious  books  in  Portu- 
guese and  learned  Guarany,  the  language  of  the  In- 
dians, and  evangelized  both  them  and  the  negroes. 
But  in  1654  the  Dutch  withdrew  and  left  almost  no 
traces  behind. 

A  century  later,  in  1735,  the  Moravian  missions 
were  begun  in  British  Guiana  and  three  years  later  in 

217 


2l8  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

Dutch  Guiana,  and  in  later  years  other  missions  were 
established  in  these  possessions.  But  we  are  concerned 
in  this  study  with  Latin  America,  and  its  next  Protest- 
ant missionary  visitor  was  Henry  Martyn,  who,  on  his 
way  to  India  in  1805,  touched  at  Bahia  long  enough 
to  ascend  the  battery  overlooking  the  Bay  of  All 
Saints  and  to  pray  for  the  evangelization  of  the  peo- 
ples of  the  lands  about  him.  As  he  gazed  upon  the 
scene,  he  repeated  the  hymn: 

**  O'er  the  gloomy  hills  of  darkness 
Look,  my  soul,  be  still  and  gaze." 

Before  resuming  his  voyage,  he  found  opportunities 
to  enter  the  monasteries,  Vulgate  in  hand,  and  reason 
with  the  priests  out  of  the  Scriptures. 

As  early  as  1823,  after  the  independence  of  the 
republics,  missionaries  were  allowed  to  open  schools 
in  Buenos  Aires,  to  conduct  preaching  services  and 
to  circulate  Bibles.  The  work  was  soon  given  up. 
For  some  time,  however,  the  circulation  of  the  Bible 
was  widely  tolerated  in  the  new  states.  In  Bogota,  a 
Bible  Society  was  organized.  The  Secretary  of  State 
was  its  President  and  ecclesiastics  were  among  its 
officers.  In  many  places,  the  priests  facilitated  the 
circulation  of  the  New  Testament  in  Spanish  and  the 
Lancasterian  schools  using  Scripture  selections  as 
reading  lessons  were  established  in  Argentina,  Mon- 
tevideo, Chile,  Peru  and  Colombia,  Guatemala  and 
Mexico.  It  seemed  for  a  time  that  the  evangeUcal 
movement  would  permeate  the  Catholic  Church  and 
thus  make  possible  the  evangelization  of  these  lands 
without  the  introduction  of  Protestantism.^  But  the 
Roman  Church  soon  rejected  the  reform.    The  schools 

*  See  Brown,  "  Latin  America,"  185-190. 


PROTESTANT   MISSIONS  219 

died.  The  circulation  of  the  Bible  was  forbidden  and 
the  Church  set  herself  against  the  movement  of  free- 
dom and  progress.^ 

The  first  enduring  Protestant  mission  to  South 
America  began  with  the  sacrifice  of  Capt.  Allen  Gar- 
diner who  perished  of  starvation  in  September,  1851, 
in  Spaniard  Harbor,  Tierra  del  Fuego,  in  a  cavern  to 
which  the  searching  party  was  directed  by  a  hand 
painted  on  the  rocks  with  Psalm  62 :  5-8  under  it : 

"  My  soul,  wait  thou  only  upon  God ; 
For   my   expectation   is    from    Him. 
He  only  is  my  rock  and  my  salvation. 
He  is  my  high  tower;  I  shall  not  be  moved. 
With  God  is  my  salvation  and  my  glory: 
The  rock  of  my  strength  and  my  refuge  is  in  God. 
Trust  in  Him  at  all  times  ye  people; 
Pour  out  your  heart  before  Him; 
God  is  a  refuge  for  us." 

Gardiner  had  been  instrumental  in  establishing  in 
1844  the  South  American  Missionary  Society  and  his 
death  gave  its  work  a  new  impulse,  as  the  heroism 
and  devotion  of  his  life  have  inspired  workers  at 
home  and  abroad  in  all  Churches  and  in  all  lands.^  It 
was  of  the  results  of  the  work  which  Gardiner  began 
that  Charles  Darwin  spoke  in  his  often  quoted  testi- 
mony to  the  value  of  Christian  missions :  "  The  suc- 
cess of  the  Tierra  del  Fuego  Mission  is  most  won- 
derful and  charms  me,  as  I  always  prophesied  utter 
failure.  It  is  a  grand  success.  I  shall  feel  proud  if 
your  committee  think  fit  to  elect  me  an  honorary  mem- 
ber of  your  Society.^ 

1  Brown,   "Latin   America,"    190—193. 

2  Young,  "  From  Cape  Horn  to  Panama,"  Ch.   i ;  Marsh  and  Stirling, 
*'  The   Story   of  Commander   Allen   Gardiner,    R.N." 

•  Young,  "  The  Success  of  Christian  Missions,"  254-259. 


220  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

Gardiner  had  made  visits  to  Chile  and  Bolivia  be- 
fore undertaking  his  last  heroic  mission  to  Tierra  del 
Fuego  and  he  had  had  experience  also  in  Argentina 
and  Patagonia.  Every  student  of  missions  should 
study  his  bold  and  devoted  career,  in  Marsh  and  Stir- 
ling's "  The  Story  of  Commander  Allen  Gardiner, 
R.N."  or  Young's  "  From  Cape  Horn  to  Panama." 

Captain  Gardiner's  mission  to  the  Indians  was  in 
purely  heathen  territory  and  among  the  aborigines. 
The  first  permanent  work  in  the  Latin  States  was 
begun  by  Dr.  Kalley,  a  pious  Scotch  physician  who 
had  worked  in  Madeira  in  1842-1846  and  came  to  Rio 
de  Janeiro  about  1855,  where  he  built  up  an  abiding 
evangelistic  work  in  his  own  independent  way.  He 
had  been  preceded  in  Brazil  by  representatives  of  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church  in  the  United  States,  to 
which  belongs  the  honor  of  the  first  attempt  to  plant 
the  Gospel  in  Brazil,  in  modern  times.  The  Method- 
ist Mission  began  in  1836,  but  financial  pressure  of 
those  times  led  to  its  abandonment  in  1842. 

A  temporary  work  had  also  been  done  in  Rio  in 
1851-1853  by  the  Rev.  J.  C.  Fletcher,  a  Presbyterian 
minister  who  worked  under  the  American  and  For- 
eign Christian  Union  and  the  Seamen's  Friend  So- 
ciety. The  American  and  Foreign  Christian  Union 
beside  this  temporary  work  in  Rio  began  the  work 
in  Chile,  transferring  it  later  to  the  Presbyterian 
Board.  The  Union  some  years  ago  ceased  to  carry  on 
active  missionary  work.  It  has  now  only  a  nominal 
existence  and  all  its  assets  have  been  funded  for  the 
benefit  of  the  American  Church  in  Paris. 

Dr.  Kalley's  work  was  independent.  The  first  de- 
nominational work  established  in  Brazil  which  has 
never  been  discontinued  was  the  Presbyterian   Mis- 


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PROTESTANT    MISSIONS  221 

sion  in  Brazil  founded  by  the  Rev.  A.  G.  Simonton 
in  1859.  Mr.  Simonton  reported  as  follows  the  con- 
ditions which  he  found  prevailing: 

To  my  mind,  the  most  astonishing  feature  of  the  religious 
condition  of  Brazil  is  its  almost  total  lack  of  all  religion. 
Unless  I  am  mistaken,  Brazil  is  singular  in  this  respect,  even 
among  the  most  thoroughly  Roman  Catholic  nations.  Not 
only  has  religion  degenerated  from  being  a  thing  of  con- 
viction to  a  mere  habit,  but  it  has  become  a  habit  to  pay  no 
attention  to  its  outward  forms.  The  number  of  church-goers 
is  very  small.  Confession  is  falling  into  disuse.  Priests  are 
dissolute,  and  not  unfrequently  scoffers.  A  pure  and  univer- 
sal indifference  seems  to  reign.  The  extremity  of  the  Pope 
has  produced  no  public  prayers,  and  Garibaldi  and  Cavour 
are  heroes.  It  is  said  that  no  people  can  be  without  a  relig- 
ion ;  if  so,  few  nations  can  be  much  more  destitute  than 
Brazil.  There  are  special  occasions,  however,  which  show 
that  he  would  be  greatly  deceived  who  imagined  that  their 
religion  is  like  that  which  is  found  in  Protestant  countries. 
At  times  they  become  religious.  One  of  these  times  is  the 
hour  of  death.  Then  the  priest  is  sure  of  employment  and 
pay.  Confession,  absolution,  the  sacrament,  and  extreme  unc- 
tion are  the  sources  of  trust  in  that  hour  when  all  men  would 
be  religious  if  they  could. ^ 

The  Presbyterian  Mission  in  Brazil  ^  was  followed 
by  the  mission  of  the  Episcopal  Church  of  the  United 
States,  begun  in  i860  but  abandoned  after  a  few  years 
and  reestablished  in  1889;  next  by  the  mission  of 
the  Southern  Presbyterian  Church  in  1869,  then  by 
the  mission  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  South, 
in  1876  ^  and  by  the  Southern  Baptist  Mission  in 
1882.* 

Permanent  missionary  work  was  begun  in  Argen- 

* "  South    American    Missions,"    6. 

'  See  "  Historical  Sketches  of  Presbyterian  Missions." 

*  John,   "  Handbook  of  Methodist  Missions." 

*  Ray,  "  Southern  Baptist  Foreign  Missions." 


222  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

tina  and  Uruguay  by  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church 
a  few  years  later  than  the  permanent  work  in  Brazil, 
but  its  permanence  was  rudely  shaken  at  times  in 
the  early  years.  The  first  Protestant  worship  in  the 
city  of  Buenos  Aires  was  held  by  James  Thomson 
of  the  British  and  Foreign  Bible  Society  in  1820, 
nine  persons  being  present  at  the  service  in  a  private 
house.  The  meetings  thus  begun  were  continued  by 
a  Methodist  layman  and  then  taken  up  by  some  Pres- 
byterian workers,  but  the  latter  were  withdrawn  in 
1836  and  until  recent  years  the  field  was  cared  for 
only  by  the  Methodists.  The  story  of  the  work  is 
told  in  Reid's  "  Missions  and  Missionary  Society  of 
the  M.  E.  Church,"  Vol.  I,  Part  IV. 

Next  to  Brazil  and  the  republics  of  the  Rio  de  la 
Plata,  Colombia  is  the  oldest  Protestant  mission  field 
in  South  America.  The  Rev.  H.  B.  Pratt,  who  is  still 
living,  was  sent  to  Bogota  by  the  Presbyterian  Church 
in  1856.  "  At  that  time  the  government  interposed 
no  hindrances;  but  the  swarming  priests  were  prodi- 
gal of  impediments,  and  the  ignorance  of  the  masses 
greatly  retarded  the  circulation  of  the  truth  through 
the  press.  *  He  found  among  the  youth  and  the  men 
no  love  for  the  Church,  but  a  widespread  deism; 
he  found  a  low  standard  of  morality  everywhere 
prevalent,  the  utter  absence  of  spiritual  Hfe,  and  a 
resting  only  in  outward  ceremonials  for  an  inward 
preparation  for  the  life  to  come.'  "  ^ 

Without  detailing  the  history  of  the  establish- 
ment of  missions  in  each  South  American  land,  it 
will  suffice  to  summarize  the  last  statistical  state- 
ment (1911)   regarding  the  work  in  South  America, 

1 "  Historical  Sketch  of  the  Missions  in  South  America,"  39.  Sixth 
Edition,    Revised. 


PROTESTANT   MISSIONS  223 

as   given   in   "  The  World   Atlas   of   Christian   Mis- 
sions." ^ 

Total  No.         Total  No.       Total  No.         Total  No. 
of  Societies.      of  Foreign      Ordained  &         of  Corn- 
Missionaries.   Unordained      municants. 
Native  Workers. 

Argentine    Republic 19  199  189  4,800 

Chile    6  97  I34  5,6i6 

Uruguay    6  27  27  925 

Paraguay    3  ^'2  18  I47 

Brazil    19  244  364  28,903 

Bolivia    6  16  3  54 

Peru    5  45  82  572 

Ecuador    4  I9  5  61 

Venezuela    6  19  10  114 

Colombia    2  10  6  125 

These  are  the  figures  given  in  the  last  authoritative 
statistical  report  on  foreign  missions,  but  the  actual 
working  force  on  the  field  falls  far  short  of  these 
numbers. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  single  pieces  of  mis- 
sionary work  to  be  found  in  South  America  is  the 
enterprise  in  Buenos  Aires  heretofore  known  as  the 
"  Argentine  Evangelical  Schools." 

These  schools  are  day  schools  for  poor  children, 
begun  in  1898  by  the  Rev.  William  C.  Morris,  who 
is  connected  with  the  South  American  Missionary 
Society  of  England.  There  are  now  over  5,000  chil- 
dren taught  in  these  schools  and  the  work  is  alive 
with  the  intense,  energetic,  practical  spirit  of  Mr. 
Morris.  No  one  can  see  these  great  throngs  of  chil- 
dren, orderly,  well  taught,  reading  the  New  Testament 
as  one  of  their  text-books,  inspired  with  the  sense  of 
duty  to  God  and  to  their  country,  prepared  practically 
for  life  by  industrial  training,  without  being  uplifted 
by  the  sight.  The  schools  are  largely  supported  by 
1 96-^8. 


224  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

gifts  in  Argentina,  but  the  work  is  an  enormous  bur- 
den for  one  man.  They  enjoy  now  the  favor  of  the 
Argentine  Government,  which  gave  them  a  subsidy 
in  1907  of  $48,000  Argentine  money.  The  municipal- 
ity of  the  city  of  Buenos  Aires  gave  them  $5,000 
Argentine  money.  The  effect  of  this  work  has  been 
to  set  both  a  moral  and  pedagogical  standard  for  gov- 
ernment schools  as  mission  schools  ought  to  do,  and 
also  to  quicken  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  to  take 
up  work  which  it  had  utterly  neglected  until  this  ex- 
ample was  set  before  it. 

The  President  of  the  Republic  has  expressed  his 
sincere  sympathy  with  the  work  that  is  being  carried 
on  in  these  schools,  and  they  have  no  warmer  friends 
than  are  to  be  found  in  the  Argentine  National  Con- 
gress. They  have  had  great  opposition  to  overcome, 
however,  which  still  wars  against  them  on  the  part  of 
the  Roman  Church  in  the  Argentine. 

One  of  the  best  known  Protestant  Mission  schools 
in  South  America  is  the  Mackenzie  College  at  Sao 
Paulo.  The  College  was  incorporated  by  the  Board 
of  Regents  of  the  University  of  the  State  of  New 
York  in  July,  1890.  The  purpose  which  the  trustees 
had  in  view  in  seeking  incorporation  in  this  country 
was  to  extend  and  perpetuate  the  type  of  Christian 
education  commenced  by  the  Presbyterian  Mission 
in  1870.  The  mission  school  had  grown  into  a  com- 
plete graded  system  of  primary,  intermediate,  gram- 
mar and  high  school  instruction  with  more  than  500 
pupils  of  both  sexes,  having  a  Normal  class  for  train- 
ing its  own  teachers,  a  manual  training  shop  under 
skilled  direction — the  first  one  in  Brazil — and  a  kin- 
dergarten, also  the  first  one  in  Brazil.  It  was  patron- 
ized  by   all   classes   and   had   more   applicants   than 


PROTESTANT   MISSIONS  225 

places.  Out  of  it  had  come,  largely,  the  reorganiza- 
tion of  the  public  schools  on  the  American  model. 
The  College  now  has  engineering,  commercial  and 
arts  courses  and  the  total  enrollment  for  19 10  in  all 
departments  of  the  College  and  subordinate  schools 
was  827. 

The  Protestant  missions  in  Brazil  have  been  the 
most  successful  and  fruitful  missions  in  South  Amer- 
ica. There  are  now  not  less  than  28,903  Protestant 
communicants  in  Brazil.  Before  the  great  and  criti- 
cal demands  of  the  present  hour  there  is  no  greater 
need  in  South  America  than  the  need  of  unity  and 
zeal  in  these  strong  Brazilian  churches.  As  one  of 
the  ablest  Christian  leaders  of  the  country  says :  "  The 
liberal  stream  of  opinion  is  growing  rapidly  against 
the  Roman  clericalism  which,  from  every  side,  in- 
vades our  country.  Very  soon  the  religious  question 
will  be  put  seriously  to  our  countrymen.  It  is  neces- 
sary that  the  evangelical  churches  be  prepared,  by 
brotherly  love  and  broad  evangelical  views,  in  order 
not  to  repulse  this  approaching  tide."  This  is  but 
part  of  the  larger  problem  which  confronts  the 
Churches  in  Brazil — the  problem  of  a  vivification  of 
the  church  life  and  a  fresh  kindling  of  the  fires  of 
her  devotion  and  service  in  a  time  of  peculiar  need 
and  opportunity.  "  I  beg  you  to  arouse  your  country 
to  come  to  our  help,"  one  of  the  leading  men  in 
western  Parana  said  to  us  in  the  little  hotel  at  Im- 
bituve.  He  is  the  largest  landholder  in  the  west  of 
this  state,  and  a  free  thinker,  but  a  lover  of  his  coun- 
try. "  I  dread,  in  the  interest  of  our  nation,  the  as- 
sault which  Jesuitism  is  making  upon  it."  Will  the 
churches  here  and  in  Brazil  meet  the  situation ?  "I 
am  confident,"  writes  one  of  the  younger  leaders  of  the 


226  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

Church  in  a  letter,  "  that  this  problem  will  be  soon 
solved,  on  broad  lines,  and  that  our  ministry  will 
hold  its  own  in  this  country,  which  is  developing  in 
a  wonderful  way.  Otherwise,  with  the  strong  policy 
of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  and  the  materializa- 
tion of  the  public  mind  by  the  facilities  of  money 
making  and  the  industrial  evolution  of  our  country 
we  will  lose  our  day,  as  we  have  lost  it  in  France  and 
in  Spain  during  the  last  decades  of  the  Reformation." 

In  Chile  there  is  now  not  a  resident  foreign  mis- 
sionary in  the  five  central  provinces  of  O'Higgins, 
Calchagua,  Curico,  Talca  and  Linares  with  a  popula- 
tion of  692,000.  There  are  a  few  Chilean  preachers, 
not  more  than  three  or  four,  but  not  a  missionary. 

In  Peru  there  are  all  told  less  than  fifty  mission- 
aries, including  wives  and  teachers,  for  a  population 
of  3,500,000,  as  great  as  that  of  the  states  of  Texas 
and  Rhode  Island  with  an  area  nearly  three  times 
that  of  the  state  of  Texas.  In  northern  Peru  no  one 
is  at  work.  There  are  populous  villages  here  in  fer- 
tile valleys  where  there  would  be  unlimited  oppor- 
tunities for  work.  And  all  this  section  is  some  day  to 
have  a  great  development.  The  best  cotton  and 
cofifee  are  raised  here,  cotton  which  is  exported  to 
the  United  States  as  well  as  Europe  and  coffee  which 
rivals  Brazil's.  No  country  in  South  America  seems 
likely  to  be  more  favorably  affected  than  Peru  by 
the  Panama  canal.  The  commercial  interests  of 
Americans  in  its  railways,  in  the  great  copper  smelter 
in  Cerro  de  Pasco,  in  rubber,  make  our  investment 
in  the  interest  of  evangelization  and  education  pitiful. 
Our  disproportion  will  surely  return  upon  us  again 
in  ways  for  which  we  shall  not  have  prepared. 

The  great  need   of   South   America   is  not  more 


PROTESTANT   MISSIONS  22"] 

independent  missionaries  or  mission  agencies  but  a 
great  strengthening  of  the  work  of  the  missions  with 
strong  Church  constituencies  behind  them,  which  will 
do  permanent  and  solid  work. 

But  all  this  work  in  Latin  America  is  disapproved 
(on  the  ground  that  it  is  for  Christian  people,  that  we 
I  are  invading  territory  already  occupied  by  a  sister 
i  Church.  As  we  have  already  seen  the  Protestant 
missions  in  South  America  are  among  nominally 
Christian  people  and  we  have  examined  the  religious 
conditions  among  these  people  which  forbid  our  leav- 
ing the  field  to  the  agency  which  has  been  in  control 
of  it.  But  it  will  be  well  now,  in  closing,  squarely  to 
face  the  question  of  the  legitimacy  of  foreign  mission 
work  among  the  nominal  Christians  of  South  America. 
It  is  not,  however,  a  new  question.  It  is  as  old  as  the 
Reformation.  And  in  modern  missions  it  was  a  more 
living  question  seventy-five  years  ago  than  it  is  to-day. 
The  American  missions  to  the  Nestorian  and  Arme- 
nian peoples  in  the  ancient  Syrian  and  Gregorian 
Churches,  to  the  Greeks  in  Turkey  and  to  the  Copts 
in  Egypt,  and  the  effort  to  meet  the  dire  needs  of 
South  America,  which  was  renouncing  both  Spain 
and  Rome  and  religion,  raised  this  issue  then  as  viv- 
idly as  it  can  be  raised  to-day.  The  objection  then 
and  now  rests  upon  two  assumptions,  first,  that  these 
nominal  Christians  are  Christian  and  do  not  need 
missionary  work  in  their  behalf,  and  second,  that 
foreign  mission  work  among  them  is  simple  prosely- 
tizing and  therefore  illegitimate  and  unworthy. 

The  story  of  the  American  missions  to  the  Oriental 
Churches  is  a  fascinating  and  suggestive  story  and 
there  are  many  lessons  to  be  learned  from  it.  (i) 
The  Roman  Catholic  Church,  which  objects  to  our 


228  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

foreign  missions  in  Latin  America,  does  so  on  prin- 
ciples which  it  rejects  in  its  dealings  with  these  Orien- 
tal Churches.  It  has  for  years  carried  on  foreign 
missions  among  them  with  a  view  to  absorbing  them 
in  the  Roman  Catholic  Church.  In  going  to  these 
Churches  we  have  done  just  what  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church  has  done.  In  some  cases,  as  among  the  Nes- 
torians  in  Persia,  our  missions  were  first,  followed 
afterwards  by  the  Roman  Catholics.  (2)  The  condi- 
tions of  these  Churches  demanded  help  from  Chris- 
tendom. They  were  illiterate.  Their  worship  often 
was  in  dead  languages.  Their  polity  was  tyrannical. 
Their  religion  was  a  travesty  of  Christianity.  They 
were  an  insuperable  obstacle  to  the  evangelization  of 
the  Mohammedans.  To  have  neglected  them  in  the 
name  of  an  ecclesiastical  theory  would  have  been  a 
shame  and  reproach  which  the  Christian  spirit  of  the 
American  Churches  refused  to  bear.  (3)  The  pur- 
pose of  our  missions  to  these  Churches  was  not 
proselytism  but  spiritual  vivification.  The  first  mis- 
sions to  the  Nestorians  in  Persia  were  instructed  to 
have  as  their  object  in  establishing  this  mission:  "  (a) 
To  convince  the  people  that  they  came  among  them 
with  no  design  to  take  away  their  religious  privileges 
nor  to  subject  them  to  any  foreign  ecclesiastical 
power;  (b)  To  enable  the  Nestorian  Church,  through 
the  grace  of  God,  to  exert  a  commanding  influence  in 
the  spiritual  regeneration  of  Asia."  The  purpose  in 
Turkey  among  the  Armenians  was  the  same.  The 
separate  Evangelical  churches  grew  up  in  spite  of  the 
influence  of  the  missions.  The  old  bottles  would  not 
accept  the  new  wine.  The  Gregorian  Church  ex- 
communicated the  men  who  embraced  the  new  life 
which  was  in  reality  only  the  restoration  of  the  old, 


i 


PROTESTANT    MISSIONS  229 

and  in  Persia,  rightly  or  wrongly,  the  evangelical 
element  moved  away  from  what  was  dead  and  en- 
slaving and  seemed  incapable  of  a  spiritual  refor- 
mation. 

But  our  concern  now  is  with  Latin  America  and 
I  wish  to  ask  and  answer  four  questions,  i.  Are 
our  missions  in  Latin  American  lands  legitimate  and 
necessary?  2.  If  so,  can  they  be  conducted  without 
encountering  the  antagonism  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church  in  Latin  America  and  in  the  United  States? 
3.  If  not,  what  course  are  we  to  pursue?  4.  If 
we  are  to  go  forward  with  the  missions  how  are  we 
to  get  for  them  that  interest  and  support  at  home 
to  which  they  are  entitled,  not  less  than  our  missions 
in  Asia  and  Africa? 

I.  Are  our  missions  in  Latin  American  lands  legiti- 
mate and  necessary?  The  evidence  already  presented 
in  these  studies  is  sufficient  answer.  It  will  suffice 
here  simply  to  summarize  what  has  been  already  set 
forth  in  detail. 

(i)  The  moral  condition  of  the  South  American 
countries  warrants  and  demands  the  presence  of  any 
form  of  religion  which  will  war  against  sin  and  bring 
men  the  power  of  righteous  life. 

(2)  The  Protestant  missionary  enterprise  with  its 
stimulus  to  education  and  its  appeal  to  the  rational 
nature  of  man  is  required  by  the  intellectual  needs 
of  South  America. 

(3)  Protestant  missions  are  justified  in  South 
America  in  order  to  give  the  Bible  to  the  people. 

(4)  Protestant  missions  are  justified  and  de- 
manded in  South  America  by  the  character  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  priesthood. 

(5)  Protestant  missions  in  South  America  are  jus- 


230  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

tified  because  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  has  not 
given  the  people  Christianity. ' 

(6)  Protestant  missions  are  justified  in  South 
America  because  the  South  American  Roman  Catho- 
lic Church  is  at  the  same  time  so  strong  and  so 
weak. 

But  these  considerations  are  far  from  exhausting 
what  is  to  be  said  in  answer  to  the  objection  that  our 
Protestant  work  in  Latin  America  is  an  '*  intrusion 
upon  territory  already  occupied  and  fully  covered  by 
another  branch  of  the  Christian  Church ; "  that  this 
other  branch  of  the  Church  is  a  "  true  Church,  exert- 
ing a  beneficial  influence  and  much  better  adapted  than 
the  Protestant  Churches  to  meeting  the  needs  of  ro- 
mantic and  emotional  people  like  the  Latin  Americans, 
who  are  deeply  devoted  to  their  Church,  and  who  can 
only  be  either  perplexed  or  angered  by  Protestant  in- 
vasion." These  opinions  are  shared  by  many  good 
people  who  know  devout  Christian  Catholics  in  the 
United  States,  and  not  unnaturally  assume  that  the 
Catholic  Church  is  everywhere  what  they  believe  it  to 
be  here.  A  candid  examination  of  these  objections 
will  show  their  invalidity  and  the  adequate  warrant 
of  Protestant  missions  in  Latin  America. 

I.  They  have  not  intruded.  "  Every  important 
movement  of  Protestantism  in  these  countries  has  had 
its  origin  in  the  response  to  a  call  coming  from  these 
countries  themselves  and  from  the  native  people. 
Everywhere  are  to  be  found  those  who  long  for  bet- 
ter things  and  who  have  sent  out  their  cry  into  the 
Christian  world  until  it  has  been  heard  and  heeded."  ^ 
In  1882,  President  Barrios  of  Guatemala  urged  the 
Presbyterian   Board  of  Foreign  Missions  to  send  a 

^"Protestant  Missions  in  South  America,"  113. 


PROTESTANT   MISSIONS  23I 

missionary  to  Guatemala  and  offered  to  pay  his  ex- 
penses to  the  field.  When  General  Sarmiento  was 
elected  President  of  the  Argentine  "  one  of  the  first 
things  he  did  was  to  give  Dr.  William  Goodfellow, 
an  American  [Methodist]  Missionary  returning  to  the 
United  States,  a  commission  to  send  out  a  number  of 
educated  women  to  establish  normal  schools  in  Argen- 
tina." ^  In  1884  President  Roca  of  Argentina  at  a 
Protestant  anniversary  celebration  in  Buenos  Aires, 
praised  the  missionaries,  saying  that  to  their  influence 
he  attributed  much  of  the  progress  of  the  republic  and 
urged  them  to  enlarge  their  field  and  increase  their 
zeal.  Such  evidence  might  be  multiplied — from  the 
side  of  the  people  as  well  as  from  their  rulers.  Much 
of  the  work  of  the  missions  was  original  and  sponta- 
neous, the  missionaries  being  invited  by  people  who 
had  already  broken  from  Rome,  to  come  and  give 
them  further  guidance  and  instruction.  There  is,  of 
course,  the  most  bitter  opposition  from  the  Church. 
The  "  Def  ensa  Catolica,"  published  in  Mexico,  de- 
clared plainly  in  1887,  "  In  the  Lord's  service  and  for 
love  of  Him,  we  must,  if  need  be,  offend  men;  we 
must  if  need  be,  wound  and  kill  them.  Such  actions 
are  virtuous  and  can  be  performed  in  the  name  of 
Catholic  Charity."  ^  And  where  the  government  is 
under  the  control  of  the  Church,  there  is  vexatious 
political  hindrance  of  missions.^  Those  who  say  that 
Latin  America  does  not  want  Protestant  missions 
have  only  this  ground  for  their  statement,  namely,  the 
Roman  Church  does  not  want  them.  That  they  are 
not  regarded  by  the  people  as  an  intrusion  is  shown  by 

*"  Protestant   Missions   in    South  America,"    109. 

*  Brown,    "  Latin   America,"   247, 

'  Report  of  Ecumenical  Conference,  New  York,    1900,  Vol.   I,  477. 


232  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

the  fact  that  the  constitutions  of  almost  all  the  re- 
publics have  been  amended,  in  spite  of  the  opposition 
of  the  Church,  to  allow  freedom  of  religion  and  to 
secure  the  rights  of  those  who  hold  and  propagate 
other  forms  of  faith  than  the  Roman. 

2.  The  territory  is  not  already  occupied  and  fully 
covered  by  the  Roman  Catholic  Church.  There  are, 
as  we  have  seen,  about  5,000,000  Indians  in  South 
America,  of  whom  about  3,000,000  are  Quichua- 
speaking.  While  claiming  them  as  its  children  the 
Roman  Church  in  South  America  is  doing  almost 
nothing  for  them.  And  for  many  of  the  other  peoples, 
it  does  next  to  nothing.  If  it  furnishes  them  with 
occasional  worship  and  confessional,  it  yet  leaves 
most  of  them  utterly  ignorant,  providing  no  adequate 
schools,  nor  literature,  nor  vital  inspiration.  Even 
where  it  displays  itself  most,  the  work  of  enlighten- 
ment and  purification,  without  which  nations  cannot 
live,  is  not  done.  Protestant  schools  are  crowded 
everywhere  and  might  be  multiplied  indefinitely,  and 
be  in  large  measure  or  entirely  self-supporting.  If  the 
Roman  Church  were  doing  what  needs  to  be  done, 
there  would  be  no  such  educational  demand  as  to-day 
appeals  to  every  Protestant  mission. 

3.  As  we  have  seen,  the  South  American  people 
cannot  be  left  to  the  sole  influence  and  example  of  the 
Roman  Church  as  it  is  in  South  America.  Some  fresh 
testimony  will  confirm  the  facts  which  we  have  already 
faced.  "  The  ceremony  of  marriage,"  Mr.  Curtis 
wrote  of  Ecuador,  '*  is  not  observed  to  any  great  ex- 
tent, for  the  expense  of  matrimony  is  too  heavy  for  the 
common  people  to  think  of  paying  it.  For  this,  the 
Catholic  Church  is  responsible,  and  to  it  can  be  traced 
the  cause  of  the  illegitimacy  of  more  than  half  of  the 


PROTESTANT   MISSIONS  233 

population."  ^     Dr.  Blackford,  who  lived  for  twenty- 
six  years  in  Brazil  tells  us  plainly  what  he  saw  there. 

Romanism  was  inherited  by  Brazil  from  the  mother-coun- 
try. It  has  held  almost  undisputed  sway  there  for  over  three 
centuries.  It  is  but  fair,  therefore,  to  infer  that  the  system 
has  brought  forth  its  legitimate  fruits  in  that  great  and  beau- 
tiful land.  .  .  . 

Aside  from  the  fearful  corruptions  in  morals  which  the 
system  everywhere  engenders,  and  which  will  not  bear  recital 
here,  a  few  of  its  dire  results  may  be  mentioned,  as  follows : 
The  most  debasing  ignorance  and  superstition  pervade  the 
minds  of  the  masses.  The  religious  sentiment  in  man,  if  not 
nurtured  and  directed  by  the  truths  of  Divine  Revelation, 
will  be  overrun  by  the  most  degrading  and  ridiculous  super- 
stitions. Rome  everywhere  seeks  with  jealous  care  to  hide 
the  Word  of  God  from  the  people.  The  result  intended  is 
secured:  that  abjection  of  spirit  and  superstitious  faith,  which 
engender  fanaticism  and  render  the  ignorant  the  ready  tools 
of  priestcraft. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  intelhgent,  educated  and  thinking 
classes  are  driven  into  unbelief  and  indifference.  It  is  so  in 
Brazil.  The  unlettered  classes  are  grossly  superstitious  and 
idolatrous.  As  a  general  thing,  intelligent  men  who  have  any 
claim  or  make  any  pretensions  to  education,  do  not  hesitate 
to  declare  their  disbelief  in  many,  if  not  all,  of  the  doctrines 
of  the  religion  they  have  been  taught.  If  any  such  profess 
a  full  belief  in  their  system,  their  sincerity  is  at  once  ques- 
tioned. This  is  the  natural  and  inevitable  result.  ...  In  such 
cases  men,  without  a  knowledge  of  the  truths  of  the  Bible, 
naturally  seek  refuge  in  rationalism  and  infidelity,  and  not  a 
few  are  driven  into  absolute  atheism. 

Popery  has,  however,  demoralized  itself  in  Brazil.  There 
is  in  general  very  little  attachment  to  the  Romish  system  as 
such.  If  the  Pope  should  disappear  to-morrow  and  his  place 
should  never  again  be  filled,  it  would  make  very  little  differ- 
ence to  the  great  majority  of  Brazilians,  so  far  as  their  re- 
ligious belief,  sentiments,  and  practices  are  concerned.  The 
priests  are  in  general,  ignorant  and  immoral,  and  frequently 
avaricious  and  exacting,  and,  as  a  consequence,  are,  in  most 

*  "  Capitals  of  South  America,"  306. 


234  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

parts,  heartily  despised.  For  a  number  of  years  past  their 
influence  has  been  rapidly  waning  in  the  more  intelligent  com- 
munities and  amongst  the  better  classes.  .  .  . 

The  fruits  of  Romanism  are  seen  not  only  in  the  moral 
debasement,  but  in  the  backward  state  of  mental  and  social 
culture  and  of  material  progress.  The  superiority  of  Protest- 
ant nations  in  these  respects  does  not  result  from  the  differ- 
ence of  race,  but  from  the  difference  in  their  religion ;  it  is 
the  effect  of  the  power  of  the  truth  of  God's  Word  on  the 
intellects  and  hearts  of  men,  and  its  consequent  bearing  and 
influence  on  their  conduct  and  social  institutions. 

Millions  of  souls  in  Brazil  are  in  as  urgent  need  of  the 
Gospel  as  are  the  pagans  of  China,  India,  or  Africa;  and 
are  in  an  extraordinary  degree  prepared  to  receive  it;  yea, 
more,  are  urgently  beseeching  that  it  may  be  sent  to  them.^ 

And  Mrs.  T.  S.  Pond  writes  of  what  she  saw  in  her 
life  in  Colombia: 

In  Barranquilla  the  people  are  not  bigoted  as  in  Bogota  and 
other  interior  towns,  but  atheism,  indifference,  and  super- 
stition are  harder  to  overcome.  I  have  been  asked,  "  Is  not 
the  Catholic  religion  good  enough  for  those  people  ? '"  The 
truth  is,  they  are  not  acknowledged  as  Catholics  by  those 
Catholics  who  come  from  Europe  and  the  States.  They  say, 
"  These  people  are  not  Catholics."  .  .  .  The  priests  are  vile 
men,  and  known  to  be  so.  One  who  died  in  Barranquilla, 
some  years  ago,  left  bequests  to  fifty  children  whom  he  ac- 
knowledged as  his  own.  Grown  men  and  women,  now,  they 
go  by  his  name.  I  have  heard  of  churches  in  the  country 
being  used  as  places  for  cockfights,  in  which  priests,  as  well 
as  people,  delight.  The  religion  of  priests  and  people  con- 
sists in  shows  and  ceremonies,  and  those  who  take  part  in 
the  processions  of  Good  Friday  and  Easter  are  assured  of 
forgiveness  for  all  the  sins  committed  during  the  year,  and 
lay  up  for  themselves  merit,  especially  if  they  can  bear  some 
weight  of  the  heavy  platform  on  which  is  carried  the  image 
of  Christ. 

Is  such  a  Church  to  be  left  in  possession  of  the  re- 
ligious, moral  and  social  interests,  yes,  and  of  the  in- 

^ "  Sketch  of  the  Brazil  Mission,"  4,   5. 


PROTESTANT  MISSIONS  235 

tellectual  and  political  interests  also,  inseparably  as- 
sociated with  these,  of  40,000,000  of  our  fellow  crea- 
tures? The  people  who  have  no  religion  may  answer 
this  question  affirmatively,  but  no  one  will  do  so  who 
knows  the  human  heart  or  human  history.  As  the 
President  of  the  Presbyterian  Board  of  Foreign 
Missions,  th»  Rev.  George  Alexander,  D.D.,  upon 
returning  from  a  visit  to  Brazil  in  the  summer  of 
1903,  said  in  his  report  to  the  Board : 

With  every  disposition  to  think  as  favorably  as  possible 
of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  I  am  persuaded  that  the  mis- 
sionaries do  not  exaggerate  the  baleful  influence  of  that  type 
of  religion  which  Rome  has  given  Latin  America.  Her  doc- 
trine and  discipline  have  sapped  the  foundation  of  virile  char- 
acter, fettered  intellect  and  conscience  and  utterly  failed  to 
check  immorality  and  vice.  She  may  even  be  called  the 
patron  of  vice.  She  shares  with  the  State,  the  responsibility 
for  a  lottery  system  pervasive,  obtrusive  and  hideously  de- 
moralizing. The  festals  of  the  Church  are  in  many  cases 
wild  orgies,  and  the  clergy  themselves  are  so  generally  de- 
praved that  they  lead  the  weak  of  their  flocks  in  the  ways 
of  sin  and  provoke  the  more  intelligent  and  moral  to  disbe- 
lieve in  the  divine  origin  of  Christianity  and  even  in  the  ex- 
istence of  God.  This  is  no  libel  upon  the  priesthood,  but  a 
statement  abundantly  confirmed  by  Catholic  authorities. 

The  priesthood  of  Brazil  is  only  to  a  very  limited  extent 
Brazilian.  It  is  recruited  almost  exclusively  from  abroad  and 
from  the  least  desirable  elements,  .  .  .  Most  of  these  recent 
importations  are  friars  from  the  Philippines  or  members  of 
orders  banished  from  France;  an  infusion  which  does  not 
tend  to  raise  the  moral  tone  of  the  clergy,  though  some  of 
them  are  men  of  great  capacity.  ...  At  the  same  time,  it  is 
true  that  the  immigration  of  ecclesiastics  has  touched  the 
sensibilities  of  the  people  who  are  morbidly  apprehensive  of 
foreign  influence.  .  .  . 

The  usual  fruits  of  such  a  debased  form  of  Christianity 
are  painfully  manifest.  The  intelligence  of  Brazil  is  in  revolt 
against  the  Church.  Educated  men  for  the  most  part  adopt 
the  philosophy  of  positivism,  and  those  whose  spiritual  crav- 


236  SOUTH   AMERICAN   PROBLEMS 

ings  will  not  be  satisfied  with  such  a  creed  eagerly  accepted 
the  teachings  of  spiritualism.  .  .  . 

The  most  influential  man  in  South  America  in  an  interview 
which  I  had  with  him  on  the  day  of  my  sailing  from  Rio, 
said,  "  It  is  sad,  sad  to  see  my  people  so  miserable  when  they 
might  be  so  happy.  Their  ills,  physical  and  moral,  spring 
from  a  common  source,  lack  of  religion.  They  call  them- 
selves Catholics,  but  the  heathen  are  scarcely  less  Christian. 
The  progress  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race  is  due  to  their  religion. 
Our  people  have  left  the  firm  foundation  and  are  trying  to 
build  their  fabric  in  the  air.  Two  weeks  ago,  I  had  a  call 
in  this  office  from  Julio  Maria,  a  Catholic  priest  of  great 
learning  and  eloquence,  who  has  been  traversing  Brazil  from 
north  to  south,  preaching  and  holding  conferences.  He  said 
to  me,  'The  moral  and  religious  condition  of  this  people  is 
unspeakable,  almost  remediless.  I  see  but  a  single  ray  of 
hope  and  as  a  Catholic  priest  I  am  ashamed  to  say  where  I 
see  it.'  I  expect  him  to  tell  me,  that  he  finds  it  in  some 
Protestant  mission." 


4.  Even  if  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  in  South 
America  were  better  than  it  is,  Protestant  Missions 
engaged  in  founding  Protestant  Churches  would  be 
needed  to  do  for  the  Roman  Church  just  what  the 
Protestant  Church  does  for  it  in  the  United  States. 
Without  the  check  of  powerful  evangelicalism  round 
about  it,  the  Roman  Church  tends  to  become  every- 
where just  what  Dr.  Blackford  has  described.  With 
a  strong  Protestant  environment,  it  is  purged  of 
grosser  superstition  and  saved  from  the  base  conse- 
quences of  its  own  self-development.  Already  in 
Mexico,  the  influence  of  Protestantism  begins  to  be 
felt  in  counter  reforming  movements  in  the  Roman 
Church  and  that  will  be  the  course  of  affairs  all  over 
Latin  America.  The  Protestant  Churches  will  not  ab- 
sorb the  Roman  Catholic  Church.  They  will  in  a 
measure  purify  it. 


PROTESTANT   MISSIONS  237 

The  Roman  Catholic  Church  in  South  America 
needs  the  Protestant  missionary  movement.  There  is 
good  in  that  Church  in  South  America.  There  are 
good  men  and  women  in  it.  In  spite  of  the  falsehoods 
and  vicious  elements  in  it,  there  is  truth  also.  That 
the  good  in  it  may  triumph  over  the  evil,  there  is  need 
of  external  stimulus  and  purification.  The  presence 
of  Protestant  missions  alone  will  lead  the  Church  into 
a  self  cleansing  and  introduce  the  forces,  or  support 
whatever  inner  forces  there  may  already  be,  which 
may  correct  and  vivify  it.  There  are  some  who  think 
that  the  South  American  religious  system  is  simply  to 
be  swept  away,  that  it  cannot  be  reformed,  but  there  is 
another  view  open  to  us,  and  that  is  that  against  what- 
ever odds  and  with  whatever  deep  cutting  excisions 
the  good  may  be  strengthened  and  enabled  to  eliminate 
the  evil.  Already  Protestant  missions  have  wrought 
great  changes.  They  have  altered  the  ostensible  atti- 
tude of  the  Church  toward  the  Bible.  They  have  been 
among  the  influences  which  have  secured  a  very  fair 
text-book  of  Sacred  History  in  the  public  schools  in 
Chile.  They  have  elevated  the  standard  of  education 
in  the  schools  conducted  by  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church  and  have  greatly  stimulated  the  Church  in  its 
establishment  of  schools.  ''  His  praiseworthy  efforts," 
says  the  ex-Minister  of  Justice  and  Public  Instruction 
in  the  Argentine,  Dr.  Federico  Pinedo,  of  Mr.  Morris, 
the  founder  of  the  Argentine  Evangelical  Schools, 
"  have  had  the  virtue  of  awakening  the  Catholics,  who, 
not  to  be  left  behind,  have  also  founded  numerous 
schools,  so  that  in  every  way  the  most  needy  children 
are  being  benefited."  They  have  steadily  widened  the 
sphere  of  freedom  and  hedged  in  the  Church  more 
and  more  to  a  true  Church  ideal.    To  restrain  or  abate 


238  SOUTH   AMERICAN   PROBLEMS 

the  forces  which  have  done  all  this  is  not  an  act  of 
true  friendship  toward  the  Roman  Catholic  Church. 
It  is  a  betrayal  of  her  best  interests  and  her  best  men 
and  women  who  need  all  the  help  that  can  be  sent 
from  without  to  meet  the  need  of  South  America  and 
to  purge  its  chief  institution. 

In  this  view  the  attitude  of  Protestant  Missions  to 
the  Roman  Catholic  Church  in  South  America  ought 
to  be  an  attitude  of  true  discrimination  and  intelligent 
helpfulness  and  positive  service.  We  should  not  at- 
tack its  doctrine  or  its  priesthood.  We  must  know  the 
grounds  on  which  we  are  in  South  America,  but  the 
grounds  of  our  presence  there  are  not  to  be  made  the 
substance  of  our  preaching.  We  are  there  to  preach 
Christ,  not  to  denounce  those  who  do  not  preach  Him. 
We  ought  not  to  engage  in  polemics.  The  work  in 
South  America  which  has  really  succeeded  has  not 
used  the  method  of  warfare  against  the  South  Amer- 
ican system.  It  has  lovingly  and  patiently  carried  to 
men  a  true  gospel  of  forgiveness  and  salvation.  It  is 
hard  to  restrain  the  converts  from  attacking  evils 
which  they  know  so  well  and  have  come  so  to  abhor, 
but  all  such  tactics  confuse  the  issue  and  entangle  our 
religious  enterprise  with  political  and  intellectual  lib- 
eralism. Masonry,  free  thought,  and  mere  anti-clerical- 
ism, so  that  we  are  put  in  a  false  position  and  misrep- 
resent our  own  mission.  We  ought  also  to  cultivate 
closer  relations  and  acquaintanceship  with  priests  and 
with  Roman  Catholics  who  are  ardently  devoted  to 
their  Church.  This  will  be  good  for  us.  We  shall  be 
able  to  work  more  intelligently.  We  can  explain  our 
own  purposes  and  perhaps  foster  a  more  tolerant  and 
Christian  spirit,  and  we  may  find  men  and  women  who 
are  themselves  eager  to  see  the  Church  what  it  ought 


PROTESTANT   MISSIONS  239 

to  be.  It  is  surely  not  wrong  for  us  to  cherish  the 
ideal  of  reform  of  what  is  partly  good  as  well  as  de- 
struction of  what  is  wholly  evil. 

The  difficulty,  however,  it  must  be  honestly  stated 
is  not  on  this  side.  The  Church  does  not  want  to  be 
reformed.  '  The  South  American  system  is  imperious 
and  self-satisfied.  It  views  Protestantism  as  perni- 
cious and  intolerable.  It  proceeds  upon  the  principle 
of  absolute  exclusivism  set  forth  in  the  reply  of  C. 
Cardinal  Patrizi,  dated  at  Rome,  September  16,  1864, 
to  the  Roman  Catholic  Bishops  in  England  as  to  the 
judgment  of  the  Inquisition  on  the  subject  of  the 
membership  of  Catholics  in  the  "  Association  for  the 
Promotion  of  the  Unity  of  Christendom,"  made  up  of 
both  Anglicans  and  Roman  Catholics  and  other 
Christians. 

The  principle  upon  which  it  rests  is  one  that  overthrows 
the  Divine  Constitution  of  the  Church.  For  it  is  pervaded 
by  the  idea  that  the  true  Church  of  Jesus  Christ  consists 
partly  of  the  Roman  Church  spread  abroad  and  propagated 
throughout  the  world,  partly  of  the  Photian  Schism  and  the 
Anglican  heresy  as  having  equally  with  the  Roman  Church 
one  Lord,  one  faith  and  one  baptism.  The  Catholic  Church 
offers  prayers  to  Almighty  God  and  urges  the  faithful  in 
Christ  to  pray,  that  all  who  have  left  the  holy  Roman  Church 
out  of  which  is  no  salvation,  may  abjure  their  errors  and  be 
brought  to  the  true  faith  and  the  peace  of  that  Church,  nay 
that  all  men  may  by  God's  merciful  aid,  attain  to  a  knowl- 
edge of  the  truth.  But  that  the  faithful  in  Christ  and  that 
ecclesiastics  should  pray  for  Christian  unity  under  the  direc- 
tion of  heretics  and,  worse  still,  according  to  an  institution 
stained  and  infected  by  heresy  in  a  high  degree,  can  no  way 
be  tolerated.  .  .  .  Catholics  who  join  this  Society  are  giving 
both  to  Catholics  and  non-Catholics  an  occasion  of  spiritual 
ruin.  .  .  .  The  most  anxious  care  then  is  to  be  exercised,  that 
no  Catholics  may  be  deluded  either  by  appearance  of  piety 
or  by  unsound  opinions  to  join  or  in  any  way   favor  the 


240  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

Society  in  question  or  any  similar  one ;  that  they  may  not  be 
carried  away  by  a  delusive  yearning  for  such  newfangled 
Christian  Unity,  into  a  fall  from  that  perfect  unity  which 
by  a  wonderful  gift  of  Divine  Grace  stands  on  the  firm 
foundation  of  Peter.i 

It  has  been  the  priests  in  South  America  who  burned 
the  Bibles,  the  priests  who  instigated  the  mobs,  the 
priests  who  have  taught  that  Protestants  are  teachers 
of  unholy  doctrines  and  exiles  from  the  Kingdom  of 
Heaven.  To  quote  from  Canon  Saavedra's  official 
South  American  Catechism : 

Q.  Why  do  you  say  that  the  doctrines  which  the  Protest- 
ants teach  are  not  holy? 

A.  Because  they  say  that  faith  alone  is  sufficient  to  save 
one,  even  when  there  are  no  good  works ;  they  counsel  a  per- 
son to  sin  as  much  as  possible  to  make  salvation  the  more 
sure ;  they  say  that  good  works  are  the  rather  a  hindrance  to 
entering  heaven;  they  abolish  the  sacrifice  of  the  mass  and 
the  sacrament  of  penance;  they  put  away  fasting  and  the 
mortification  of  the  body,  and  advise  that  the  legitimate  au- 
thority be  not  obeyed. 

Q.  Is  it  not  a  false  teaching  of  our  religion  that  outside 
of  the  Catholic  Church  there  is  no  salvation? 

A.    Nothing  is  more  reasonable  than  this  principle. 

But  this  attitude  of  the  South  American  religious 
system  only  reveals  the  more  clearly  its  need  of  the 
presence  of  the  evangelical  Church.  What  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church  is  in  the  United  States  as  compared 
with  what  it  is  in  South  America,  the  two  Churches 
not  being  recognizable  as  the  same  Church,  so  that 
American  Roman  Catholics  who  come  down  to  South 
America,  say  "  This  is  not  my  religion  at  all,"  shows 
the  need  in  South  America  of  just  those  influences 

^  Official  Roman  Catholic  translation,  quoted  in  Walsh,  "  Secret 
History  of  the   Oxford   Movement." 


PROTESTANT   MISSIONS  24I 

which  in  North  America  have  formed  the  greatest 
blessing  of  the  Church,  a  vastly  greater  blessing  than 
her  connection  with  the  Papal  See. 

5.  The  Protestant  movement  is  not  a  mere  pros- 
elytism.  It  is  not  that  at  all.  It  is  a  powerful  edu- 
cational and  moral  propaganda,  teaching  freedom 
and  purity.  It  is  also  a  powerful  evangelistic  agency, 
aiming  at  the  conversion  to  Christianity  of  people, 
who,  whatever  their  ecclesiastical  relations,  are  often 
only  adherents  of  a  refined  heathenism.  The  pur- 
poses of  the  missions  are  not  destructive  polemics. 
They  aim  at  the  spiritualization  of  the  dead  religion 
which  has  cumbered  these  nations  and  would  keep 
them  from  light  and  progress.  We  would  be  happy 
if  this  could  be  accomplished  by  general  reformation 
within  the  Church,  but  failing  that,  we  must  strive 
to  accomplish  it  by  winning  men  one  by  one  to  a  true 
and  reasonable  and  enlightening  faith. 

No  one  knows  the  South  American  conditions  bet- 
ter or  views  them  with  a  broader  outlook  than  the 
Rev.  J.  W.  Fleming,  D.D.,  for  many  years  minister 
of  the  Scotch  Presbyterian  Church  in  Buenos  Aires,  a 
strong  church  of  Scotch  and  English  residents.  For 
years  this  church  confined  its  work  to  the  colonists 
but  it  has  now  at  last  been  constrained  to  take  up 
Spanish  work  also  for  two  reasons.  Dr.  Fleming 
says: 

In  the  first  place,  we  have  in  our  hands  the  priceless  mes- 
sage of  the  Gospel,  and  without  in  any  way  denying  the 
true  and  vital  Christianity  of  numbers  of  Roman  Catholics 
we  beHeve  that  there  are  still  greater  numbers  who  are  in 
ignorance  of  what  real  Christianity  is.  They  are  not  only 
bad  Christians,  they  are  bad  Roman  Catholics.  It  is  alto- 
gether an  error  to  say  that  we  are  seeking  to  proselytize 
these  people.    When  we  seek  to  make  them  Protestant  we 


242  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

are  winning  them  from  heathenism  or  the  next  thing  to  it, 
and  giving  them  for  the  first  time  in  their  lives  a  real  knowl- 
edge of  Christianity,  It  is  a  clear  duty  to  take  up  such  work ; 
we  have  received  the  Gift  and  we  are  bound  to  pass  it  on. 
All  the  world  is  to  be  won  for  Christ,  and  surely  our  first 
duty  is  to  begin  with  that  portion  of  the  world  which  does 
not  know  the  unsearchable  riches  of  Christ  and  which  at  the 
same  time  lies  at  our  own  doors.^ 

6.  The  needs  of  South  American  Protestants  jus- 
tify the  existence  of  Protestant  churches.  This  is 
the  second  reason  mentioned  by  Dr.  Fleming  for  the 
inauguration  of  Spanish  work  by  his  church.  It  pre- 
sents an  unanswerable  argument  for  the  legitimacy  of 
Protestant  work  in  South  America.  Speaking  of  the 
nationalized  children  of  the  European  colonists  in 
Argentina,  Dr.  Fleming  remarks: 

It  is  the  fact  that  every  year  there  is  an  increasing  number 
of  young  people  growing  to  maturity  who  are  Protestants  by 
birth  and  by  conviction  and  who  are  often  Presbyterians  by 
baptism  and  training,  but  whose  knowledge  of  the  English 
language  is  very  defective,  and  occasionally  is  altogether 
wanting.  These  are  our  own  people  and  ought  to  be  looked 
after  by  the  Church  of  which  they  are  made  members  in 
baptism.  At  present  they  are  drifting  away  from  worship 
of  every  kind,  whereas  if  we  had  a  church  to  which  they 
could  attach  themselves,  some,  at  least,  would  become  valu- 
able members  of  the  Church  of  Christ.'" 

For  a  hundred  years  now  English-speaking  Protest- 
ant people  have  been  moving  into  South  America. 
Were  they  to  come,  Alberdi  asked,  without  the  reHg- 
ion  that  made  them  what  they  were?  By  no  means. 
They  brought  their  religion  with  them  and  that  relig- 
ion once  brought,  by  its  very  nature  propagated  itself. 

^Buenos  Aires  Scotch  Church  Magazine,  March,  1903,   z. 
» Ibid. 


PROTESTANT   MISSIONS  243 

The  first  Protestant  preachers  were  not  so  much  mis- 
sionaries to  South  Americans  as  they  were  pastors 
of  the  immigrants  and  colonists  and  foreign  com- 
munities, but  their  influence  soon  and  inevitably  spread 
beyond  those  of  their  own  race  and  became  an  appeal 
and  inspiration  to  those  who  had  never  been  touched 
and  affected  by  such  character. 

A  typical  man  of  this  class  was  David  Trumbull 
of  Valparaiso,  the  pioneer  missionary  in  Chile,  whose 
name  is  still  gratefully  revered,  and  who  deserves  to 
be  ever  remembered  for  his  service  in  securing  a  liber- 
alization of  the  laws  of  Chile,  in  promoting  a  wider 
range  of  thought  and  sympathy,  in  uplifting  the  tone 
of  a  foreign  community  in  a  commercial  city,  and 
in  embodying  high  ideals  of  noble  and  companionable 
character.  In  all  South  America  we  found  no  for- 
eign community  more  happily  interrelated  or  better 
maintaining  home  ideals  and  religious  institutions  than 
the  foreign  community  in  Valparaiso.  Many  causes 
have  doubtless  operated  to  produce  this,  notably  the 
work  of  Dr.  Trumbull's  successors  and  the  high  and 
Christian  tone  of  certain  prominent  business  houses, 
but  doubtless  also,  Dr.  Trumbull's  influence  is  seen 
in  this.  For  more  than  forty  years  he  ministered 
to  the  English-speaking  people  of  Valparaiso,  at  the 
same  time  that  he  made  the  well  being  of  Chile  his 
one  great  care.  When  the  struggle  for  the  passage  of 
laws  providing  for  civil  marriage  and  religious  free- 
dom and  other  reforms  was  at  its  height,  a  struggle 
in  which  he  was  the  central  figure,  he  vowed  that  if 
the  measures  passed,  out  of  gratitude  and  confidence 
he  would  become  a  citizen  of  the  land  to  which  he 
had  given  his  life.  And  he  fulfilled  his  vow.  The 
high  United  States  official  who  once  spoke  of  him  as 


244  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

a  "  renegade  American  "  was  not  informed  as  to  the 
man  or  his  work.  They  are  suitably  described  in  the 
inscription  on  the  great  stone  over  his  grave  in  the 
foreign  cemetery  at  Valparaiso,  a  cemetery  in  which 
there  rest  also  the  bodies  of  Dr.  AUis,  another  of  the 
most  faithful  missionaries,  and  of  some  of  the  little 
children  who,  in  simplicity,  have  shared  the  fortunes 
of  conditions  which  they  could  neither  choose  nor 
refuse. 

MEMORIAE  SACRUM 

The  Reverend 
David  Trumbull,  D.  D, 

Founder  and  Minister  of  the  Union  Church,  Valparaiso. 

Born  in  Elizabeth,  N.  J.,  ist  of  Nov.,  1819. 

Died  in  Valparaiso,  ist  of  Feb.,  1899. 

For  forty-three  years  he  gave  himself  to  unwearied  and 
successful  effort  in  the  cause  of  evangelical  truth  and  relig- 
ious liberty  in  this  country.  As  a  gifted  and  faithful  minister 
and  as  a  friend  he  was  honored  and  loved  by  foreign  resi- 
dents on  this  coast.  In  his  public  life  he  was  the  counsellor 
of  statesmen,  the  supporter  of  every  good  enterprise,  the 
helper  of  the  poor,  and  the  consoler  of  the  afflicted. 

In  memory  of 
His  eminent  services,  fidelity,  charity  and  sympathy 

This   monument 

Has  been   raised  by  his  friends  in  this  community 

And  by  citizens  of  his  adopted  country. 

All  over  South  America,  where  the  English  and  Ger- 
man-speaking people  have  come  to  settle  or  carry  on 
business,  they  have  their  own  Protestant  services. 
And  such  services  must  be  maintained  for  the  moral 
life  of  these  people  and  their  children.  It  would  be 
wrong  not  to  have  them,  but  it  is  impossible  to  have 
them  without  releasing  influences  which  are  subver- 
sive of  the  old  South  American  religious  system. 


PROTESTANT   MISSIONS  245 

7.  The  Latin  American  states  need  the  type  of 
character  which  only  a  strong  evangelical  religion  can 
produce.  **  Owing  to  the  lamentable  want  of  public 
morality  south  of  the  equator,  and  to  the  cynicism  of 
the  political  vultures  who  make  it  their  business  to 
prey  upon  their  fatherland,"  says  Mr.  Child,  "  it  is 
always  a  painful  task  to  speak  about  the  adminstra- 
tion  of  the  South  American  Republics."  ^ 

Elsewhere  Mr.  Child  fulfills  this  painful  task. 

The  whole  apparatus  of  republicanism  in  these  countries 
is  a  farce,  and  in  spite  of  the  sonorous  speeches  of  after- 
dinner  orators  they  have  not  yet  begun  to  enjoy  even  the 
most  elementary  political  liberty.  A  brief  glance  at  the  past 
history  of  the  South  American  Republics  will  explain  why 
this  is  so.  For  convenience'  sake  we  will  take  the  Argentine 
as  an  example,  the  history  of  the  others  being  in  all  essential 
points  analogous  and  parallel.  After  the  separation  from 
Spain  in  1810,  the  Argentines,  prepared  by  three  centuries  of 
Spanish  domination  to  look  to  their  rulers  for  everything,  and 
to  dispense  with  initiative  of  all  kinds  in  the  organization 
and  administration  of  their  national  and  economical  life, 
were  at  a  loss  what  use  to  make  of  their  newly-acquired 
liberty.  They  were  free  citizens,  but  they  did  not  know 
what  citizenship  means.  They  had  vague  ideas  of  their 
rights,  but  no  idea  of  their  duties — a  condition,  by  the  way, 
in  which  they  have  remained  to  the  present  day,  therein  re- 
sembling very  closely  the  French,  who  have  spent  a  whole 
century  in  learning  that  citizens  of  a  republic  have  duties 
as  well  as  rights,  and  that  the  citizen  who  values  his  rights 
and  desires  to  retain  them  intact  must  give  himself  the  pains 
to  be  continuously  and  zealously  an  active  voting  citizen. 
However,  from  1800  onward  the  Argentines  passed  through 
a  long  period  of  revolutions  until  1852,  when  the  nation 
seemed  at  length  to  have  achieved  pacific  possession  of  its 
destinies ;  but  being  still  without  the  practical  and  self-reliant 
spirit  of  democracy,  it  sought  support  as  an  example  for  a 

*  Child,  "South  American  Republics,"  435;  Carpenter,  "South  Amer- 
ica," 368, 


24b  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

future  history  in  the  past  experience  of  the  United  States. 
Thus  the  text  of  the  American  Constitution  and  its  federative 
doctrines  were  adopted,  and  the  political  heroes  and  juriscon- 
sults of  the  United  States  acquired  new  admirers  and  new 
disciples  south  of  the  equator.  The  modern  Argentine  Re- 
public found  its  salvation  in  imitation,  but  the  salvation  has 
not  been  complete,  because  the  imitation  of  North  American 
institutions  has  been  in  the  letter  rather  than  in  the  spirit, 
.  .  .  The  Argentines  have  eliminated  virtue  from  their  de- 
mocracy ;  they  have  forgotten  that  they  ever  had  souls ;  and 
yet  they  talk  of  their  greatness  and  revel  in  prodigious  sta- 
tistics. But  in  what  does  a  nation's  greatness  consist?  To 
quote  the  words  of  James  Anthony  Froude,  in  his  "  Oceana  " : 
"  Whether  (a  nation)  be  great  or  little  depends  entirely  on 
the  sort  of  men  and  women  that  it  is  producing.  A  sound 
nation  is  a  nation  that  is  composed  of  sound  human  beings, 
healthy  in  body,  strong  of  limb,  true  in  word  and  deed — 
brave,  sober,  temperate,  chaste,  to  whom  morals  are  of  more 
importance  than  wealth  or  knowledge — where  duty  is  first  and 
the  rights  of  man  are  second — where,  in  short,  men  grow  up 
and  live  and  work,  having  in  them  what  our  ancestors  called 
the  fear  of  God."  ^ 

This  is  a  far  severer  indictment  than  we  would 
draw.  We  take  a  much  more  hopeful  and  favorable 
view,  but  Mr.  Child  describes  South  America's  great- 
est need.  And  that  fear  of  God  Romanism  has  not 
supplied  in  all  these  centuries  of  domination.  It  has 
given  South  America  neither  the  religion,  the  ethics, 
nor  the  politics  of  the  New  Testament. 

Sometimes  it  is  said  that  South  America  is  back- 
ward and  politically  dilapidated  because  of  the  char- 
acter of  the  people,  not  because  of  their  religion. 
Dr.  Lane,  of  Brazil,  has  answered  this  view: 

Much  has  been  written  about  the  decline  of  the  Latin  races, 
as  if  certain  races  were  doomed  because  of  their  ancestors. 
It  would  be  a  monstrous  thing,  from  a  Christian  standpoint, 

*  Child,   "  The   Spanish   American   Republics,"   329. 


m 


< 

O 


PROTESTANT   MISSIONS  247 

if  a  nation  or  an  individual  must  fall  behind  in  the  race  of 
life  under  the  fatal  influence  of  the  blood  in  their  veins.  We 
do  not  believe  it,  but  agree  with  Emil  de  Lavelye,  who  wrote 
on  the  subject  some  twenty-five  years  ago,  that  it  is  rather 
a  question  of  religion  than  of  race.  Centuries  of  wrong 
thinking— acting  from  wrong  motives,  the  effects  of  vicious 
education  or  no  education,  will  make  the  people  of  any  race 
weak;  but  there  is  an  education  based  upon  the  principle  of 
a  pure  Christianity  which  will  make  the  people  of  any  race 
strong;  the  power  of  Truth  in  God's  word,  on  the  intellects 
and  hearts  of  men,  will  regenerate  a  nation  as  surely  as  it 
will  an  individual,  purify  its  politics  and  straighten  out  its 
finances.! 

Latin  America  has  made  in  some  parts  of  it  real 
progress  since  Mr.  Child  wrote  the  words  quoted,  but 
the  need  of  character  and  principle  is  as  great  as 
ever  in  the  face  of  the  new  and  acute  problems  of 
the  present  day.  The  responsibility  for  helping  Latin 
America  to  meet  this  need  rests  upon  us,  the  nearest 
neighbor.  We  have  assumed  toward  the  American 
Republics  an  attitude  of  political  responsibility  which, 
however  acceptable  it  was  to  them  once,  has  become 
a  little  irritating  to  them  now.  They  are  afraid  now 
of  growing  American  predominance  and  are  fearful 
lest  American  oversight  should  work  to  their  humili- 
ation and  dependence.  The  only  safe  and  certain 
way  to  disarm  such  fears  and  to  win  their  confidence 
and  to  help  them  in  their  problem  is  to  establish  a 
closer  relationship  in  religious  convictions  and  moral 
principles.  There  is  no  adequate  reformatory  agency 
save  Christianity,  and  there  is  no  cement  of  personal 
or  national  intercourse  comparable  with  common  re- 
ligious sentiments  and  beliefs  and  hopes.  We  owe 
it  not  less  to  the  common  destiny  of  this  Westers 

»  The  Brasilian  Bulletin^  Vol.  I,  No.  i,  4. 


248  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

Hemisphere  that  we  should  share  with  these  people 
the  real  Christian  inheritance  to  which  so  many  of 
them  are  strangers,  than  we  owe  it  to  them  as  nations 
and  as  men.  Foreign  missions  are  the  main  channel 
through  which  that  inheritance  is  to  be  given. 

Let  us  hear  this  last  consideration  in  the  words 
of  the  Anglican  Bishop  of  Argentina,  whose  seat  is 
in  Buenos  Aires  and  whose  work  lays  on  him  the 
burden  of  South  America's  real  need: 

"  The  Needs  of  South  America,"  how  great  and  pathetic 
they  are  I  The  world's  empty  continent — the  hope  of  the 
future — the  home  to  be  of  millions  of  Europeans,  who  are 
already  beginning  to  flow  there  in  a  steady  stream — it  is 
without  true  religion,  and  does  not  realize  its  danger!  The 
form  of  the  faith  prevalent  is  the  weakest  and  most  corrupt 
known,  and  it  is  impossible  to  believe  that  the  rising  young 
nationalities  of  the  continent  can  long  be  content  with  it. 
Indeed  they  are  not  content  with  it  now.  Yet  a  faith  they 
must  have.  What  hope  is  there  for  Argentina,  for  example, 
that  Spanish-speaking  United  States  of  the  future,  without 
true  religion  ?  Of  what  use  are  vast  material  resources,  rapid 
development,  wealth,  knowledge,  power,  without  that? 
Surely  God  has  a  place  in  the  world  for  these  brilliant 
Southern  races.  They  are  still  full  of  vitality.  We  have  no 
right  to  speak  of  them  as  effete  and  played  out,  especially 
when  we  know  the  marvelous  recuperative  power  of  the 
human  race.  Well,  where  should  this  place  of  development 
be  but  in  the  free  air  and  temperate  climate  and  wide  spaces 
of  the  new  world,  far  from  the  social  tyrannies  and  relig- 
ious superstitions  which  have  hitherto  retarded  their  proper 
growth?  It  is  nothing  less  than  axiomatic  that  South  Amer- 
ica needs  true  religion,  if  its  future  history  is  not  to  be  a 
disappointment  and  its  development  a  failure.  .  .  . 

South  America  needs  what  Christian  England,  if  the 
Church  were  but  moved  with  more  faith  and  love,  could 
easily  give — true  religion,  viz..  Reformed,  Scriptural,  Apos- 
tolic Christianity.  Our  own  people  need  it,  that  they  may 
be  saved  from  only  too  possible  degradation.  The  Spanish 
and  Portuguese-speaking  people  need  it,  that  they  may  de- 


PROTESTANT   MISSIONS  249 

velop  into  the  strong  free  nations  they  desire  to  be.  The 
aboriginal  races  of  Indians  need  it,  that  they  may  be  saved 
from  extinction  and  find  their  place,  too,  in  the  kingdom  of 
God. 

If  missionary  work  is  not  warranted  and  demanded 
in  conditions  like  these,  where  is  it  legitimate? 

II.  But  if  our  missions  in  Latin  America  are  justi- 
fied and  necessary,  can  they  be  conducted  without  en- 
countering the  antagonism  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church  in  Latin  America  and  in  the  United  States? 

Well,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  they  do  not  escape  and 
never  have  escaped  this  antagonism,  no  matter  what 
the  care  and  spirit  with  which  they  have  been  con- 
ducted. One  could  quote  criticisms  by  Roman  Cath- 
olics of  the  American  Episcopal  Missions  in  Brazil 
and  the  Philippines,  although  in  the  latter  the  Mission 
has  sought  carefully  to  protect  itself  from  the  suspic- 
ion of  proselytizing  among  the  Roman  Catholic  Fil- 
ipinos. And  we  all  know  how  the  Protestant  mis- 
sions in  all  parts  of  Latin  America  have  been  assailed 
by  the  Roman  Church  and  how  the  organs  of  the 
Church  in  the  United  States  have  dealt  with  any  who 
have  dared  to  state  the  facts  regarding  Latin  Ameri- 
can conditions.     Now  is  all  this  inevitable? 

History  helps  us  to  answer  this  question.  There 
was  a  time  when  in  the  Philippines  and  in  all  Latin 
America  there  was  no  religious  liberty,  no  free  speech, 
no  public  education,  no  civil  marriage,  no  burial  rites 
or  interment  in  a  cemetery  for  a  Protestant,  no  valid 
baptism  for  Protestant  children  and  consequently  in 
some  lands  no  right  of  inheritance.  These  intoler- 
able conditions  have  passed  away.  Did  they  pass 
away  without  the  antagonism  of  the  Roman  Catholic 


2SO  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

Church?  It  fought  every  one  of  these  reforms.  It 
is  fighting  some  of  them  still.  Not  one  advance  has 
been  made  toward  free  institutions  and  free  educa- 
tion and  freedom  of  opinion  and  speech  and  religion 
in  Latin  America  v^ithout  encountering  relentless 
opposition  from  the  Roman  organization.  If  every 
step  thus  far  toward  the  emancipation  and  enlighten- 
ment of  South  America  has  been  antagonized  by  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church,  we  must  not  be  surprised  or 
intimidated  if  we  continue  to  meet  with  opposition. 

For  let  us  candidly  and  fearlessly  face  the  real 
facts.  It  is  very  well  to  seek  to  justify  some  of  our 
work  in  South  America  by  pointing  out  the  atheism 
and  unbelief  which  need  to  be  dealt  with  and  also 
the  great  aboriginal  population  which  is  to  be  reached, 
but  neither  of  these  considerations  will  save  us  from 
the  opposition  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  for, 
however  unwarrantedly,  the  Roman  Catholic  Church 
in  South  America  claims  almost  all  the  accessible 
Indian  population,  so  that  our  work  among  them  is 
resented  by  the  Roman  Church  as  much  as  work  for 
the  rest  of  the  population,  and,  curious  as  the  fact 
may  appear,  the  atheism  and  unbelief  and  immorality 
of  South  America  are  all  nominally  Roman  Catholic. 
In  no  South  American  country  have  the  men  of  the 
land  more  completely  thrown  off  religion  than  in  the 
Argentine,  and  yet  nominally  these  men  are  Roman 
Catholics  and  the  constitution  of  the  Argentine  re- 
quires that  the  President  of  the  Republic  shall  be  a 
Roman  Catholic.  In  Chile,  as  we  have  seen,  where 
a  third  of  the  births  are  illegitimate  and  60  per  cent 
of  the  population  is  illiterate,  the  government  census 
gives  98  per  cent  of  the  population  as  Roman  Catho- 
lics, while  in  Brazil,  where  the  government  census 


PROTESTANT   MISSIONS  25I 

of  1890  gave  a  percentage  of  illegitimacy  of  18  per 
cent  and  of  illiteracy  of  80  per  cent,  the  official  re- 
turns gave  99  per  cent  of  the  people  as  Roman  Catho- 
lics. In  other  words,  by  the  declaration  of  the  official 
census  in  Brazil  and  Chile,  practically  all  the  illegit- 
imacy and  illiteracy  is  Roman  Catholic  illegitimacy 
and  illiteracy.  You  cannot  do  anything  for  the  people 
of  Brazil  or  Chile  that  is  not  on  the  face  of  it  work 
for  Roman  Catholics.  We  do  not  believe  that  that 
fact  puts  them  beyond  the  pale  of  enlightenment  and 
makes  any  effort  to  relieve  them  unwarrantable,  but 
the  simple  fact  cannot  be  escaped  that  whatever  mis- 
sions are  operated  in  these  lands  or  indeed  in  any 
Latin  American  lands  are  operated  among  nominal 
Roman  Catholics;  for  the  Roman  Catholic  Church 
claims  them  all  as  its  own. 

And  the  situation  is  not  relieved  by  that  view  of 
our  mission  work  in  these  lands  which  would  acquit 
it  of  all  responsibility  for  establishing  evangelical 
churches  and  would  be  satisfied  to  conduct  it  simply 
as  a  moral  and  educational  influence,  seeking  by  its 
example  to  awaken  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  to 
better  standards  and  a  purer  life.  The  Roman  Cath- 
olic Church  approves  of  such  Protestant  missions  no 
more  than  of  the  other  kind.  It  has  opposed  such 
work  as  earnestly  as  it  has  fought  the  evangelistic  ef- 
fort. In  the  Argentine  House  of  Deputies  it  assailed, 
through  one  of  its  bishops,  Mr.  Morris's  schools,  and 
in  Brazil,  American  Catholics  have  lamented  the  work 
even  of  Protestant  institutions  which,  although  in  this 
they  were  in  error,  they  declared  had  no  evangelistic 
purpose  or  influence.^ 

As  a  matter  of  fact  our  missions  are  welcomed 

*  The  American   Catholic    Quarterly   Review,  July,    1910,   478. 


252  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

in  every  Latin  American  land,  but  not  by  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church.  Both  in  South  America  and  here 
that  Church  steadfastly  resents  and  opposes  every 
such  effort.  We  may  lament  this.  We  may  believe 
that  it  is  the  height  of  folly  for  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church  in  the  United  States  and  Canada  to  seek  to 
deny  or  cloak  the  indisputable  facts  regarding  Latin 
America.  But  the  cold  truth  is  that  we  cannot  carry 
on  any  Protestant  work  of  any  sort  whatever  in  Latin 
America  without  encountering  the  opposition  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church  both  there  and  here. 

in.  If,  then,  this  opposition  is  unavoidable,  what 
course  are  we  to  pursue?  i.  We  are  to  do  our  duty. 
It  is  our  duty  to  minister  to  human  need.  We  are  to 
maintain  our  missions  in  Latin  America  and  to  seek 
to  evangelize  the  people  of  Latin  America  with  the 
Christian  Gospel  just  as  we  seek  to  evangelize  the 
Japanese  Buddhist  sects  whose  doctrines  and  rites  are 
scarcely  less  Christian  than  those  of  many  of  the  peo- 
ple in  Latin  America. 

2.  We  are  to  seek  to  build  up  evangelical 
churches  in  Latin  America  and  to  receive  into  these 
churches  converted  men  and  women,  whether  these 
men  and  women  have  been  nominal  Roman  Catholics 
and  actual  atheists  and  unbelievers,  or  whether  they 
have  been  open  repudiators  of  all  religion,  or  whether, 
as  will  usually  be  the  case,  they  are  men  and  women 
who  have  sought  for  moral  and  spiritual  satisfaction 
in  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  as  it  is  in  South  Amer- 
ica and  have  been  disappointed.  Most  of  the  earnest 
members  of  the  evangelical  churches  in  Latin  Amer- 
ica have  been  devout  Roman  Catholics,  who  were  dis- 
contented with  their  vain  search  for  life  and  peace. 


PROTESTANT    MISSIONS  253 

If  it  is  said  that  this  is  proselytism,  our  reply  is  that  we 
abhor  proselytism  as  much  as  any  one,  when  that  pros- 
elytism is  the  effort  to  win  a  man  from  one  form  of 
Christian  faith  to  another,  but  the  Latin  American 
form  of  Christianity  is  so  inadequate  and  misrepresen- 
tative  that  to  preach  the  truth  to  it  is  not  proselytism, 
but  the  Christian  duty  of  North  American  Christians, 
both  Protestant  and  Catholic. 

3.  We  are  to  pursue  in  all  this  work  the  most 
irenic  course.  We  are  not  to  attack  the  Roman  Catho- 
lic Church.  That  is  not  good  policy  and  it  is  not  good 
principle,  and  it  is  to  many  of  us  practically  impossi- 
ble. We  grew  up  here  with  many  friends  in  the  Ro- 
man Catholic  Church  and  we  have  many  friends  in  it 
now.  We  believe  that  here  and  even  in  Latin  Amer- 
ica it  holds  some  great  fundamental  Christian  truths. 
We  respect  the  piety  and  consecration  of  many  of  its 
men  and  women.  We  are  appalled  at  the  mass  of  evil 
which  has  overcrusted  it  in  Latin  America,  but  even 
so  we  cannot  wage  a  war  against  it.  Our  purpose  and 
desire  are  to  preach  Christ  and  to  set  forth  the  posi- 
tive truth  in  love.  This  course  will  result  in  the  de- 
struction of  error.  Even  this  course  will  be  opposed 
by  the  Latin  American  Church,  but  nevertheless  in 
spite  of  such  opposition,  in  spite  of  the  insults  and 
slander  by  which  all  who  try  to  show  the  actual  con- 
ditions in  Latin  America  will  be  assailed  in  the  United 
States,  we  must  not  be  provoked  into  unkindness  or 
injustice  toward  that  which  is  good  and  true  in  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church,  both  among  its  people  and 
among  its  leaders. 

4.  We  must  be  patient  and  hopeful.  If  we  have 
the  truth  it  will  prevail.  And  all  the  forces  of  human 
progress  are  with  us.    Indeed,  there  are  some  entirely 


254  SOUTH   AMERICAN   PROBLEMS 

too  free  and  radical  forces  awaking  within  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church  and  among  the  Latin  American  peo- 
ple. We  must  beware  of  sympathy  with  anti-clerical 
movements  which  rest  on  principles  which  are  anti- 
religious,  and  with  tendencies  of  thought  which  not 
only  destroy  tradition  but  by  the  same  token  dissolve 
history.  We  have  no  easy  path.  The  true  path  is 
never  easy  in  the  midst  of  conflicting  extremes.  To 
be  a  rank  partisan  is  far  simpler  than  to  extricate 
truth  from  error  in  antagonistic  views  and  travel  on 
even  ways. 

5.  We  must  recognize  sympathetically  the  prob- 
lem with  which  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  has  to 
deal.  It  is  stupendous.  One's  heart  goes  out  to  the 
earnest  men  who  have  to  bear  this  burden.  It  remains 
to  be  seen  whether  the  capacity  of  adjustment  to  new 
and  unavoidable  conditions  and  to  truth  is  in  the 
Church,  or  whether  it  is  incapable  of  being  reformed. 
There  are  many  who  assert  that  it  is.  We  venture  to 
believe  otherwise,  regarding  large  sections  of  it  at 
least,  though  in  other  large  sections  a  work  of  destruc- 
tion and  regeneration  must  be  done  as  radical  almost 
as  any  needed  in  heathenism. 

IV.  And  now,  lastly,  if  we  are  to  go  forward,  in 
this  spirit  of  good  will  and  friendliness,  with  un- 
daunted determination;  how  are  we  to  get  for  these 
missions  adequate  interest  and  support  at  home? 

Those  who  are  now  interested  in  such  missions  are 
interested,  as  a  rule,  from  ultra-Protestant  and  mili- 
tant anti-Papal  convictions,  and  their  argument  for 
missions  in  Latin  America  would  involve  as  an  in- 
evitable corollary  a  great  propaganda  in  the  United 
States    and    Canada    against    the    Roman    Catholic 


PROTESTANT   MISSIONS  255 

Church.  I  do  not  believe  we  ought  to  take  up  the 
matter  in  this  way.  It  is  true  that  the  Roman  Cathohc 
Church  in  the  United  States  makes  it  very  difficult  to 
take  it  up  in  any  other  way.  It  insists  that  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church  is  one  in  all  lands  and  in  all  ages,  and 
that  to  state  what  we  know  to  be  the  facts  about  Latin 
America  is  to  libel  and  attack  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church  in  the  United  States  and  Canada.  This  is  a 
terrible  responsibility  to  assume,  and  one  longs  for 
the  day  when  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  in  our  land 
will  be  as  bold  as  Cardinal  Vaughan  and  Father  Sher- 
man and  many  another  ecclesiastic  has  been,  and  de- 
nounce and  renounce  the  evils  and  abuses  which  flour- 
ish under  the  name  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  in 
all  Latin  America.  And  we  must  anticipate  this  day 
and  be  wise  enough  and  generous  enough  not  to  allow 
the  American  and  Canadian  Roman  Catholics  to 
shoulder  the  shame  of  Latin  America  in  blind  denial 
of  indisputable  facts. 

Our  propaganda  must  be  carried  on  on  the  basis  of 
these  facts — namely,  the  conditions  of  need  in  Latin 
America  which  unanswerable  evidence  can  establish. 

I.  First  of  all  we  must  set  forth  these  conditions 
and  prove  them  by  evidence  which  cannot  be  gainsaid. 
Whenever  evidence  creeps  into  our  presentation 
which  can  be  gainsaid  or  disputed,  we  are  in  danger 
of  damaging  the  case  which  must  be  made.  Such 
faulty  evidence  cannot  invalidate  the  sound  evidence, 
but  it  diverts  attention  and  it  compromises  the  argu- 
ment. It  is  no  easy  matter  to  be  faultless  here  when 
we  review  all  the  testimony  which  is  current.  But 
we  must  take  pains  to  be  absolutely  accurate,  and  then 
we  must  speak  out  unflinchingly  the  facts  which  de- 
mand attention  and  which  dare  not  be  obscured. 


256  SOUTH   AMERICAN    PROBLEMS 

2.  We  must  challenge  the  conscience  of  Great 
Britain  and  America.  The  South  American  Journal 
states  that  Great  Britain  has  £555,142,041  capital  in- 
vested in  South  America,  and  that  her  dividends  from 
this  investment  in  1909  were  £25,437,030.  That  is 
more  each  month  than  the  total  expenditure  on  evan- 
gelical missions  in  South  America  in  a  hundred  years. 
In  the  face  of  such  a  statement  as  that  quoted  from 
the  Bishop  of  Argentina,  can  a  nation  con- 
scientiously do  such  a  thing  as  this,  draw  a  stream 
of  national  wealth  from  these  lands  and  contribute  to 
them  no  moral  or  spiritual  treasure,  or  next  to  none? 

3.  We  must  temperately  but  firmly  dispute  the 
position,  that  the  whole  Church  is  facing  the  whole 
world  task,  or  is  entitled  to  claim  the  divine  resources 
available  for  a  world  enterprise  alone,  if  it  excludes 
from  its  view  the  need  and  appeal  of  Latin  America, 
or  fails  to  offer  all  the  help  which  Christian  sympathy 
and  service  can  give  to  the  warm-hearted,  generous 
people  wrestling  with  great  problems  beneath  the  stars 
of  the  far  Southern  skies. 


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1904.  Illustrated.  1904.  E.  P.  Dutton,  New  York. 
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Andrews,  C.  C.  Brazil;  Condition  and  Prospects,  1889. 
D.  Appleton  &  Co.,  New  York.    $1.50. 

Argentine  Year  Book  (The).  South  American  Publish- 
ing Co.,  Buenos  Aires.     John  Grant  &  Son. 

Barrett,  John.  The  Land  of  Tomorrow.  1907.  (Munsey's 
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Barrett,  John,     Colombia:  A  Land  of  Great  Possibilities. 

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INDEX 


Acton,  Lord,  195. 

Africa,  33- 

African,  element  in  Brazil,  43. 

Africans,  imported,  8. 

Agriculture,  20, 37. 

Akers,  quoted,  45- 

Alberdi,  quoted,  129. 

Alcoholism,  45,  207. 

Alexander,  Rev.  George,  quoted.  235, 
236. 

Almagro,  10, 13, 194* 

Alvares,  Diego,  16. 

Amazon,  7,  54,  215. 

American  and  Foreign  Christian 
Union,  220. 

American  Bible  Society,  151. 152,  215. 

American  Protestant  Episcopal  Mis- 
sion, 184,  221. 

Anchieta,  1 19. 

Andalusians,  7,  IS- 

Andes,  10,  35,  52,  54;  Bolivar  crosses, 
28;  San  Martin  crosses,  27. 

Anglican  Bishop,  of  Argentina, 
quoted,  248. 

Antofagasta,  44,  51. 

Araucanians,  6,  7.  44.  201,  202,  210, 
216. 

Areas,  comparisons  of  various  repub- 
lics with  other  countries,  33-35. 

Arequipa,  96,  144,  184,  211. 

Argentina,  4,  14,  20,  28,  36,  SO,  52, 
72,  77,  84,  94,  127,  129;  capital,  72; 
Church  in,  138,  177,  184,  189,  191, 
250;  education,  8s,  88,  106,  108, 
109;  efiEects  of  conquest,  19;  govern- 
ment, 31,  24s;  growth,  38;  immi- 
gration, 40,  71,  128;  independence, 
35,  27;  Indians,  198.  203,  21s;  mis- 
sions in,  218,  221,  223,  231,  242, 


251;  resources,  3d.  37!  settled,  lo; 

size,  34;  taxation,  68;  trade,  48,  49. 
Argentine  Evangelical  Schools,   177, 

223, 224,  237. 
Argentine  National  Congress,  224. 
Armenians,  227,  228. 
Asimcion,  11,  66.  104. 
Asiatics.  S3- 
Audiencia,  of  Lima,  13. 
Ayacucho,  great  battle,  28. 
Aymaras,  7,  117.  207,  208.  209,  aio, 

215. 
Aztecs,  6,  210. 

Backwardness,  causes  of,   72-81;  of 

South  Ameri^can  republics,  S5-64- 
Bahia,  7,  8,  12,  16,  18,  44,  66,  73,  152. 

218. 
Balboa,  9. 
Balmaceda,  82. 
Barbosa,  Ruy,  178. 
Barranquilla,  77,  170,  234. 
Barrett,  Hon.  John,  quoted,  69, 
Basques,  7.  iS- 
Belgivma,  64,  77. 
Benalcazar.  10. 
Bemado,  Bishop,  quoted,  62. 
Bibles,  62.  136.  151.  152,  XS3.  3i8, 

219,  237,  240. 
Bingham,  Professor,  quoted,  208-210. 
Blackford,  Dr.,  quoted,  233,  236. 
Bogota,  9,  2S,  52,  S9.  60,  61,  62,  66, 

77,  100,  218.  222;  Archbishop  of, 

quoted,  IS2. 
Bolivar,  23,  24,  26,  27,  28,  75, 128. 104. 
Bolivia,  3,  13,  14,  19,  51,  142,  198; 

backwardness,  55,  70;  conquest  of, 

10,   19;  education,   103,  J07,   108. 

no;  illegitimacy.  77;  immigration. 


263 


264 


INDEX 


71;  Independence,  28;  Indians,  203, 
206,  210,  215;  Inquisition,  132; 
Jesuits,  119;  missions  in,  220,  223; 
religious  liberty,  134;  resources, 
53;  size,  34. 

Bororos,  204. 

Boyaca,  213;  victory,  26. 

Brazil,  35.  36,  46,  SO,  52,  72.  85,  II3, 
IIS,  17O,  178,  179.  184,  222,  246; 
area  and  population,  39;  attitude  of 
Church,  151;  character  and  lan- 
guage, 39-41;  climate,  73".  dis- 
covery, 8;  early  civilization,  7*. 
education,  91-94, 106, 108;  effects  of 
conquest,  18,  19;  government,  31; 
illegitimacy,  76;  immigration,  41, 
128;  Immorality,  77;  Indians,  202, 
203,  215;  industry  and  resources, 
40,  41;  Jesmtsin,  16,  118,  121,  196; 
missions  in,  217,  218,  220,  221,  223, 
224,  225,  250,  251;  occupation  by 
Portuguese,  12;  religious  census, 
141;  religious  conditions,   185-187, 

190,  221,  233,  235;  religious  lib- 
erty, 132,  139;  size,  34;  struggles 
for  independence,  28,  29;  taxation, 
68;  trade,  48,49.  Si. 

Brazilians,  character  of,  74- 

Brazil-wood,  7. 

British  and  Foreign  Bible  Society,  22a. 

Browning,  Dr.  Webster  E.,  quoted, 
166-167. 

Buenos  Aires,  14,  20,  28,  31,  66,  67. 
143.  157.  180,  218;  city  problems, 
37;  education,  83,  8s,  87,  88;  in- 
dependence, 24;  missions  in,  218, 
222,  223,  231,  248;  religion  in,  188, 

191,  192;  taxes,  68. 

Bunge.  Prof.  Carlos  O.,  quoted,  83. 

Cabral,  Pedro  Alvarez,  7, 16. 

Cadiz,. 20,  24, 

Callao,  20. 

Cambao,  57, 

Cambridge  Modem  History,  quoted, 

30,  121,  125- 
Canada,  36. 


Cannibals,  207. 

Capital,  41,  42;  British,  36;  Foreign, 
72. 

Carabobo,  victory  of,  27. 

Caracas,  24,  25,  26,  66,  102. 

Caras,  s,  6. 

Cartagena,  52,  63.  122. 

Castilla  del  Oro,  9. 

Castro,  Juan  Bautista,  quoted,  160. 

Catalonian,  racial  graft,  7. 

Catholic  Dictionary,  quoted,  175. 

Cattle.  37. 

Cereals,  37- 

Cerro  de  Pasco,  copper  smelter,  326. 

Chaco,  198. 

Charcas,  14. 

Charles  III.,  22. 

Chibchas,  9. 

Child,  Mr.,  quoted,  245,  246. 

Children,  45,  so,  72,  78,  106,  108,  I14, 
122,  128,  156. 

Chile,  4,  13,  14,  36,  45,  51,  52,  72,  82, 
84,  100,  153,  iss;  alcoholism,  45; 
Church  in,  1x6;  clergy,  163. 165, 192; 
climate  and  resources,  43,  44,  7a; 
conquest  of,  10,  19;  contrast  with 
Brazil,  43;  early  peoples,  6;  educa- 
tion, 88-91,  104-106;  government, 
31;  hygiene,  45;  illegitimacy,  77t 
250;  immigration,  71 ;  independence, 
25,  27;  Indians,  201,  202;  missions 
in,  218,  220,  223,  226,  243;  religious 
liberty,  133;  size,  34;  taxation,  68; 
trade,  49. 

Chilean  tribes,  10. 

China,  34.  36,  49.  69. 

Chuquisaca,  103. 

Cities,  65-67;  great  cities,  66;  govern- 
ment, 67;  problems,  37,  38. 

Clericals,  128. 

Climate,  34, 36, 43, 44;  effect  of,  72,  73. 

Coan,  Titus,  201. 

Cochabamba,  103. 

Cochrane,  Lord,  naval  expedition  of, 
27. 

Colombia,  4,  14,  19.  22,  28,  35,  S3. 
134.     iSS;    backwardness,    SS-61; 


INDEX 


265 


Church  In,  61,  147.  176;  climate, 
73;  education,  98-101;  illegitimacy, 
77;  independence,  25,  17;  Indians, 
a  13.  315;  Inquisition.  123;  missions 
In,  318,  222,  223.  234;  politicians, 
60;  religious  liberty,  35,  137;  re- 
sources, 55;  6ize.  34;  trade,  48, 
women,  59- 

<3olon,  railroad,  65. 

Colonial,  education,  83.  84;  govern- 
ment, 19* 

Colvmibus,  8,  9.  II3. 

Concepdon,  44. 

Confessional,  146,  156. 

Conqviistadores,  7. 

Constituent  Congress  of  United  Prov- 
inces, manifesto  quoted,  30,  23. 

Cordova,  10,  83.  87. 

Cortes,  114,310. 

Creoles.  125,  ia(L 

Crucifixes,  169. 

Currency,  47,  I7d. 

Currier,  Father  Charles  W.,  quoted, 
ii(J.  117, 123, 186, 190-194. 

Curtis,  W.  E..  quoted.  135, 332, 

Cu£CO,  14,  37.  95t  96,  llO. 

Darien.  9.  213;  bishopric,  1x4. 

Darwin,  quoted,  38,  73,  30X ;  on  mis- 
sions. 319. 

Davila.  9. 

Dawson,  Hon.  Thomas  C.',  quoted, 
18. 30, 117. 118, 124;  referred  to.  17. 

Decoud,  Dr.  Jos^.  quoted.  199, 

Defensa  Catolica,  231. 

Deharb^,  Jos^,  quoted,  173. 

de  Soils,  Juan  Diaz,  ii. 

Diego  da  Nicuera,  9. 

Discoverers.  7. 

Doctrina  Cristiana.  117. 

Dom  Pedro,  I..  13,  28;  II„  29. 

Dutch,  12,  317. 

Barly  peoples,  3-7, 

Ecuador,  13.  14,  S3>  <^i.  142;  back- 
wardness, ss,  56;  Church  in,  117, 
1x8,   X35.   Z79:  climate.   73;  con- 


quest, 10,  19;  early  peoples,  5;  edu- 
cation, loi,  xio;  illegitimacy,  76; 
Independence,  38;  Indians,  214, 
215;  missions,  223;  size,  35;  trade, 
48. 

Education,  14;  attitude  of  Church,  61, 
X47;  Argentina,  85-88;  Bolivia.  X03; 
BrazU,  9Z-93;  Chile,  88-91;  Colom- 
bia, 98-101;  In  colonial  period.  83, 
84;  Ecuador,  loi ;  equipment  of  re- 
publics, 84-104:  need  of,  31;  of 
women,  106;  Paragiiay,  104;  Peru, 
95-98;  problem  of,  82-112;  strength 
and  weakness.  104-1x2;  Uruguay, 
94;  Venezuela,  102. 

El  ChiUno,  quoted,  xsx. 

Elliott,  quoted,  44. 

El  Mercurio,  quoted,  131,  162,  163, 
165. 

Endsco,  9. 

Encyclical,  of  Pope,  131. 

English  Baptist  Missionary  Society, 
report  quoted,  204-206. 

Europeans,  Influence  of,  71. 

Explorers,  7-1 1. 

Exports  and  Imports,  3a,  41,  48,  49, 
SO,  S3.  55.  56,  sS,  64. 

Facatativa,  road,  S7. 

Farabee,  Dr.  W.  C.  quoted,  203.  2x1. 

Ferdinand,  missionary  motives  of^ 
X13. 

Ferdinand  VII..  deposed.  24;  restora- 
tion of,  25,  26. 

Feudal  system,  10,  13. 

Fleming,  Rev.  J.  W..  quoted,  24X,  242. 

Fletcher,  Rev.  J.  C,  220. 

Florianopolis,  X76. 

French,  12, 19,  71 ;  influence  of  French 
Revolution,  23. 

Franciscans,  14,  xxs,  116,  xx8,  X36, 
152,  179. 

Fray  Bentos,  47. 

Froude,  James  A.,  quoted,  246. 

Galidans,  7,  15. 

Galvao,  Seiior,  quoted,  93. 


266 


INDEX 


Gammon,  S.  R.,  quoted.  163. 

Gardiner,  Captain  Allen,  301;  mis- 
sion of.  a  19.  320. 

Garland,  quoted.  95,  98. 

Geneva,  sends  missionaries  to  Brazil, 
ai7. 

Germans.  In  Brazil.  40,  71,  ja;  trade 
by.  41. 

Giesecke,  quoted.  95- 

"Glories  of  Mary."  quoted.  171. 

Gonzalo.  10. 

Goodfellow.  Dr.  William,  85.  231. 

Government.  Z3. 15,  I9,  22,  30, 3I>  32, 
63;  in  cities,  66. 

Governors,  11-19. 

Gran  Chaco,  4. 

Great  Britain,  mediation  refused,  25, 
trade,  41;  capital,  72. 

Guayaquil,  56,  67,  loi;  meeting  place 
of  San  Martin  and  Bolivar,  27. 

Hale,  quoted,  40,  75. 

Hall,  Captain  Basil,  quoted,  21. 

Hernando,  10. 

Honda,  beggars,  S9;  highway.  57- 

Hospital,  Bogota,  scenes  in.  59;  Rio, 

support  of,  133. 
Humboldt,  19. 

Illiteracy,  84.  108.  109;  compared 
with  that  in  America.  108-111. 

Immigration.  13,  19,  36,  38,  40.  43; 
influence  on  trade  and  prosperity  in 
various  republics,  7<^72;  religious 
liberty,  128. 

Incas,  10,  18, 117;  civilization,  4-6. 

Independence,  steps  toward,  24-29. 

Indians,  6.  7,  8,  9.  n.  12,  16,  40.  45, 
47,  52.  S3,  55.  S8,  72,  98,  116,  I3I, 
124.  232;  conversion  of,  113,  116; 
difficulties  with,  66;  in  various 
states,  196-216;  sufferings  under 
Latin  Conquest,  17, 19. 

Indtistries,  ai,  4a. 

Inquisition,  14, 63.  n?.  xaa.  133, 13a. 
X4a. 

Intamational  Bureau  of  American 
RepttbUcs,  quoted.  63, 98.  zoz,  toa. 


Iquique,  44. 
Iquitos,  ao4. 
Isaacson,  quoted,  185. 
Italians.  36.  40.  47.  65,  71. 

Itatiaya,  Mt.,  73. 

Japan.  34.  36,  49.  64,  70,  xo8;  educa- 

tion  compared  with  that  of  South 

America,  iii,  iia. 
Jesuits,  II,  13,  14.  16.  83.  87.  lis. 

119.  124.  125,  136.  130,  190,  196. 

203,  206;  history  of   the  order   in 

South  America,  118-133. 
John,  Prince  Regent  of  Portugal,  za. 
Jimta.  of  Caracas.  24. 

Kalley,  Dr.  Robert  R..  aao. 

La  Lei,  164,  166. 

Lane.  Dr.,  92;  quoted,  346. 

La  Paz,  52.  53,  66.  103.  149,  Z84,  ao7. 

Las  Andes,  102. 

Las  Casas.  114, 115;  quoted.  18. 

La  Sema,  defeated.  28. 

Latin  American,  inheritance.  17; 
sympathies,  33. 

Latin,  advantages  and  disadvantages 
of  Latin  Conquest,  17-19;  effect  of 
Conquest  on  Indians.  Z97;  feudal- 
ism, 33;  races.  7. 

Law,  91,  92. 

Lea,  quoted,  159. 

Leo  XIII.,  186, 187:  aUeged  letter  on 
priesthood,  165. 

Liberators,  19-39. 

Liberty,  devotion  to,  32. 

Liebig  Company,  47. 

Liguori,  Cardinal,  156. 

Liguori,  St.  Alphonsus,  quoted,  Z7Z. 

Lima,  14,  37, 66, 96, 97, 116.  zaa,  X70; 
194;  Audiencia  of,  13. 

London  Times,  quoted,  197,  az6. 

Lopez,  rule  of,  50. 

Mackenzie  College,  93, 334. 335. 
Magdalena,  57.  a  13. 
Magellan,  43. 


INDEX 


267 


Magellanes.  43.  44.  >oi- 

Maria.  Julio,  quoted.  236. 

Maipo,  victory.  37. 

Mariolatry.  170.  I74- 

Marriage.   16.   $8.  74.  79.   128,  138. 

139.  146,  159.  187. 188, 333. 
Martin  de  Souza,  8,  194. 
Martin,  quoted.  140. 
Martyn,  Henry,  in  Bahia,  3x8. 
Mat^,  41,  50.  SI- 
Maximilian,  manifesto.  130. 
Mazo.  Jos^  Garcia,  quoted,  17a. 
Medical  provision,  lack  of,  59. 
Mendoza,  11. 
Mestizos,  207. 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  South. 

331. 

Methodist   Episcopal    Mission,    330, 

331,  333. 

Mexico,  3.  6.  7,  33.  35,  31,  36,  48, 

130. 
Minas  Geraes,  gi,  93. 
Mineral,  wealth,  35,  43. 
Mines,  18,  30, 44;  Potosi.  53,  57. 
Miranda,  36. 
Mollendo,  51. 
Monteverde,  Professor,  quoted,  143, 

144- 
Montevideo,  46, 47. 66.83.94, 139.318. 
Moral  conditions,  58,  73-81,  145, 146, 

153-163, 163, 183,  247, 348. 
Moravian  missions,  317. 
Morris,  Rev.  William  C,  177.  323. 

337. asi. 

Napoleon,  za;  Influence  on  Spanish 

colonies.  33. 
Negroes.  40.  7a.  84,  98;  in  Brazil  and 

Venezuela.  40. 
Nestorians.  reasons  for  missions  to« 

337.  a38. 
New  Granada,  13,  14,  37,  130, 157, 
Nitrate,  beds  in  Chile,  43,  44. 
Nobrega.  16.  118. 119. 
Normal  Schools.  85,  87,  90,  94.  96, 

100. 
Nufies,  treaaon  of.  60. 


Oakenfull.  quoted.  18. 

O  Estado  de  SSo  Paulo,  leading  news- 
paper In  Sao  Paulo.  107, 108. 

Ojeda,  9. 

Oriental,  Churches,  missions  to,  237- 
329;  civilization  in  South  Amer- 
ica, 3. 

Oruco,  103. 

Oruro,  SI. 

Palacio.  General  Vincente  Riva, 
quoted,  123. 

Palmer.  Frederick,  quoted.  159. 

Panama,  13,  14,  20;  first  colony, 
9;  resources,  64;  United  States  of 
America  and  Panama,  65. 

Pan-American  Union,  33;  quoted, 
footnote,  49. 

Papal  bull,  114. 

Para,  ao6. 

Paraguay,  11,  14,  41,  47,  48,  51.  115; 
Church  in,  303;  education.  104, 
108,  no;  general  description,  49; 
immigration,  71;  illegitimacy,  76; 
Indians,  198-200;  Jesuits,  120;  mis- 
sions In,  333;  population.  50;  re- 
sources. 50-51;  settlement.  11; 
size.  34;  trade.  48. 

Parana.  i3i.  176. 177.  187.  335. 

Patagonia.  43.  300-3oa. 

Patriots,  quoted.  33,  35.  36. 

Patrizi,  C.  Cardinal,  quoted.  239. 

Paulistas,  8, 119,  130. 

Paul  III.,  bull  of,  116,  lai. 

Penfia,  176,  178. 

Penzotti,  imprisoned,  134. 

Pepper.  Charles  M.,  quoted,  164. 

Pemambuco,  8,  43,  66.  93,  118. 

Persia,  44,  48,  338,  339;  compared 
with  Colombia,  56. 

Peru,  7,  13,  14,  30,  33,  S2,  142;  char- 
acter and  condition.  5$;  Church  in, 
116, 117, 125, 176;  education.  9S-98, 
106,  107.  no;  efifects  of  conquest, 
18.  19;  general  description,  53-55; 
immigration,  71;  independence,  27, 
38;    Indians.    aio-3i3,    215,    216; 


268 


INDEX 


Inquisition,  I23,  132;  missions  in, 
218,  223;  occupation  of,  9,  10;  re- 
ligious liberty,  134;  size;  34;  vice- 
royalty,  13. 

Phelan,  Father,  quoted,  140,  142. 

Pichincha,  battle  of,  28, 

Pinedo,  Dr.  Federico,  quoted,  237. 

Pinzon,  7. 

Pius  IX.,  encyclical  of,  131;  letter  to 
Maximilian,  130. 

Pizarro,  S.  9i  10,  13.  114,  iiS.  I94. 
210. 

Plenary  Council  of  Bishops,  quoted, 
78,  79.  .  . .    : 

Political,  consciousness,  13;  ideals,  15; 
inheritance  of  South  American  re- 
publics, 29-32. 

Pond,  Mrs.  T.  S.,  quoted,  234. 

Poptilation,  barrier  to,  20;  comparison 
with  other  countries,  33,  34;  growth, 
33,  35.  38;  illegitimate,  76-78,  250; 
in  cities,  66;  in  schools.  107,  108, 
no.  III;  see  also,  under  various 
republics. 

Portuguese,  7,  la,  15,  16,  17,  19,  40, 
113. 

Posadas,  dictator,  27. 

Potosi,  18,  103. 

Pratt,  Rev.  H.  B.,  222. 

Presbyterians,  61,  133,  221,  222,  235. 

Prescott,  quoted,  4. 

Priesthood,  125,  153-167,  179,  181, 
190-194.  234.  235- 

Priests,  16,  38,  58,  74.  ii5.  I33.  148, 
152,  ISS,  162,  i6s,  168,  183,  218. 
240;  quoted,  38,  77,  78,  187-189, 
190-194. 

Primary  instruction,  85,  86,  87,  89, 
91.  94.  95.  96,  loi,  102,  103,  106. 

Printing,  12,  13,  147;  first  book,  117. 

Protestant  missions,  38,  41,  142,  143, 
144.  147.  148.  149,  217-256;  atti- 
tude of,  252-256;  history  of,  217- 
222;  legitimacy  of,  227,  229-249, 
relation  to  Roman  Catholic  Church, 
249-252;  schools  and  colleges,  223, 
224;  success  of,  225,  226. 


Punishments,  25. 
Punta  Arenas,  44,  201. 

Quesada,  9. 

Quichuas,  7,  117,  208,  209,  aio,  212, 

214,  215. 
Quito,  10, 14,  56,  66,  loi,  117, 179. 

Races.  3,  s,  16,  40,  sa. 

Racial  stocks,  7. 

Railroads,  35, 36, 44. 46.  S^,  57.  S8r  70. 

Rainfall,  44,  51.  54- 

Religion,  and  politics,  174-178;  oi 
masses,  181-182. 

Religious  liberty,  126-140. 

Report  on  Trade  Conditions,  quoted, 
53.  55. 

Revallo,  Father,  77. 

Reville,  Dr.  Albert,  quoted,  117. 

Revolution,  causes  of,  22;  defenso  of, 
32;  French,  23;  United  States,  23. 

Reyes,  60,  213;  automobile  road,  57. 

Ricardo,  117, 

Rio  de  Janeiro,  8,  la,  13,  42,  pi,  133, 
152,  167,  176,  188. 

Rio  de  la  Plata,  11,  222. 

Rio  Grande  do  Sul,  40,  43,  46,  Ql,  9a, 
184. 

Roca,  President,  231. 

Rochester  Student  Volunteet  Con- 
vention, 93,  165. 

Roman  Catholic  Church,  84;  claim  to 
South  America,  141-145;  domina- 
tion in  Colombia,  61;  founding  and 
development,  1 13-126;  hold  on 
people,  127;  in  Buenos  Aires,  38; 
influence  of,  55,  117;  influence  on 
education,  93,  99,  147;  responsi- 
bility of,  14s;  strength  and  weak- 
ness in  South  America,  179-195. 

Romero,  Bishop,  24,  177. 

Rowe,  Prof.  L.  S.,  quoted,  85,  86.  88, 
105,  106. 

Russia,  I  a. 

Saavedra,    Canon    Jos^,    Catechisn* 

171;  quoted,  240. 
San  Estaneslao,  Indiana  of,  199. 


INDEX 


269 


Sanitation  and  hygiene,  45.  67. 

San  Marcos,  University  of,  97- 

San  Martin,  27,  28,  194. 

Santa  Cruz,  8,  103. 

Santiago,  44,  45.  46,  66,  116,  133,  134, 
166,  167;  Catholic  University,  90. 

Sao  Paulo,  8,  40,  42,  46,  66,  185,  224; 
American  influence  on  education, 
91,  92;  growth,  71;  Jesmts  in,  1181 
119. 

Sao  Vincento,  first  colony  of  Brazil,  8. 

Sarmiento,  82,  85,  88,  231. 

SatolH,  Cardinal,  quoted,  188. 

Scruggs,  Hon.  W.  L.,  148;  quoted,  147. 

Seaman's  Friend  Society,  220. 

Secondary  Schools,  86,  87,  88,  90,  96, 
100,  loi,  102,  103. 

Seiior  Bravo,  quoted,  67. 

Sheep,  lands  in  Chile,  44. 

Sherman,  Father,  quoted,  185,  255. 

Simonton,  Rev.  A.  G.,  quoted,  221. 

Slavery,  12,  16,  39,  121,  196. 

South  American  Journal,  quoted,  255- 

South  American  Missionary  Society, 
198,  201,  202,  219,  223. 

South  American  repubUcs,  character 
of,  29;  devotion  to  liberty,  32;  dif- 
ficulties, 31;  government,'  30,  31; 
revolutions  in,  32. 

Southern  Baptist  Mission,  221. 

Southern  Presbyterian  Church,  221. 

Spain,  9,  12;  abuses  of ,  20. 

Spaniards,  9,  11,  14,  20,  21,  26,  47, 
65.  71. 

Spanish,  benefits  of  occupation,  17; 
colonial  government,  19;  conquest, 
4;  cruelty  of  ministers,  25;  explor- 
ers, 11;  language,  14;  power  lost  in 
Ecuador,  28. 

Spears,  John  R.,  quoted,  158. 

"  Statesman's  Year  Book,"  quoted* 
91,  102,  108,  198. 

Students,  abiUty  of,  los;  attitude  to- 
ward Church  and  religion,  93,  94; 
impurity  of,  80;  morality  and  re- 
ligion, 87,  88,  146. 

Sucre,  work  of,  28,  103. 


Sugar  trade,  8. 
Simday  Schools,  149. 

Tables,  58;  areas  and  population,  63. 
exports  and  imports,  50;  Indian 
population,  215;  legitimate  popula- 
tion, 77;  population.  34;  religious 
census,  141 ;  statistics  of  missionary 
work,  223. 

Tarija,  103. 

Taxation,  12,  46,  68,  89,  128;  of  re- 
ligious orders,  128. 

Thome  de  Souza,  12,  118. 

Thomson,  James,  222. 

Tierra  del  Fuego,  43,  201,  219,  220. 

Titacaca,  Lake,  3,  51,  119. 

Tordesillas,  Treaty  of,  12. 

Toribio,  Archbishop,  116,  117. 

Trade,  14,  19-20,  21,  41,  68,  69,  70. 

Training  ofjteachers,  106. 

Trujillo,  96. 

Trvunbull,  David,  243,  244. 

Tucker,  Mr.,  quoted,  151. 

Tucuman,  4,  14. 

Turner,  Mrs.,  quoted,  210. 

United  States,  12,  31,  36,  37,  48,  56, 
59,  6s,  75.  86,  90,  145,  I77.  181, 
184;  education  compared,  1 07-11 1- 
size,  34;  trade,  69;  trade  with 
Brazil,  41;  trade  with  Latin  Am- 
erica, 69. 

Universidad  Republicana,  100. 

University  of  Montevideo,  Professor, 
quoted,  143. 

Universities,  87,  90,  91,  94,  96,  97,  99, 
loi,  102,  103,  104;  expenses  of,  iii. 

Uruguay,  49,  50,  72;  Church  in,  139; 
education,  94,  108,  no;  general  de- 
scription, 46-47;  government,  31; 
Indians,  198,  203;  Jesuits,  120; 
missions  in,  222,  223;  population 
and  products,  47;  settlement,  11; 
size,  34- 

Valdivia,  10,  43,  44,  116,  194,  202,  210. 
Valparaiso,  27,  44,  45;  pioneer  mis- 
sions in,  243. 


270  INDEX 

Vaughan,  Cardinal,  quoted,  158,  17s.  Warner,  J.  H.,  quoted.  93, 105. 

355.  Wenberg,  Mr.,  215. 

Venezuela,  13.  14.  23,  37.  41.  S3.  60;  Wheat,  35.  37- 

backwardness,    70;    conquest,    19;  Wilcox,  Marrion,  quoted,  93, 104,  lOS, 

education.   xo2,   no;  government.  Women.  15,  16.  25,  47,  59,  157,  160; 

31;  immigration,  71;  independence,  defense  of,  76;  education  of,  106. 

34.  35;  missions  in,  223;  religion  in.  Wood.  Rev.  T.  B.,  quoted,  136,  212, 

139.  147;  resoiirces,  63,  64;  size,  34.  213. 

Vespucci,  Amerigo,  7.  World  Atlas  of  Christian  Missions, 

Villoran,  Dr.,  quoted.  97, 98.  quoted.  223. 


Pate  Due 


